


White Snow: Expedition

by Vhetin1138



Series: White Snow: Year 1 [4]
Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Anchorhead, Mandalorians - Freeform, OCs galore, Tatooine adventures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 02:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 90,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12356022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vhetin1138/pseuds/Vhetin1138
Summary: Vhetin and Jay are headed back to Coruscant to trade the two for information regarding their first bounty, the gangster known as Kassh. But Sekha is dangerous and unpredictable. Will she honor her promise the bounty hunters with Kassh's location?And now, a more pressing worry dawns: Vhetin and Jay are no longer alone in their hunt. Another bounty hunter is ferociously chasing Kassh, determined to claim the reward and put the crime lord away for good.Who is this mystery hunter? Is she friend or foe? And will she beat Vhetin and Jay to the prize?





	1. Leaving Rhen Var

“ _Shereshoy vencuyanir de oya_ _’karir.”_

_“Joy lives in the hunt.”_

_-_ Djuris Vasuur, Mandalorian Gladiator

**_~~~~~~~~_ **

**Unregistered smuggler's base, designation** **_Alpha Base_ ** **, Rhen Var**

Snow drifted lazily from the sky in big, puffy flakes. The storm had finally calmed after hours of raging winds strong enough to blast a ronto off its feet. Framed by a golden, halo-like glow, the sun peeked out from behind dull gray clouds and sent brilliant shafts of light onto the snowfields below in shimmering, scintillating shafts of illumination.

With a fresh, unmarred coat of snow covering the land for as far as the eye could see, everything looked bright and new and clean. The world had been reborn, and nothing of the battle-scarred Imperial base was recognizable any longer. It almost looked like a perfect winter snowfall, save for one thing: it was so cold outside that the majority of beings would freeze in under five minutes. And this was Rhen Var during the summertime.

Not exactly the snowy wonderland it appeared to be.

Jay shuddered and rubbed her gloved hands together, trying to calm her near-uncontrollable shivering. Heating systems in a mostly mechanized storage facility were, unsurprisingly, a low priority. It seemed like no matter how many of Vhetin’s heat sticks she managed to tuck into the lining of her jacket, she just got colder and colder as the hours ticked away.

Desperate for some kind of warmth, she'd searched the warehouse for close to two hours and found nothing but a small portable heater in the back _._ She was now huddled as close as safely possible to the heater, bundled up in her many layers and her heavy winter jacket and still freezing.

 _As soon as we_ _’re through with this contract,_ she thought, her breath coming out as visible puffs of vapor in the air, _I'm going to take a nice long vacation to Mon Calamari. White sand beaches, warm weather, deep blue water, warm weather..._

A sluggish draft of icy air wound its way past her. She let out a quiet gasp and pulled her heavy overcoat more securely around herself. She let out another low breath and watched the flickering orange light of the heater dance across the floor.

The insurgency operation on the smuggler's outpost had gone off with barely a hitch. Save for a few minor snags – like Vhetin almost dying from cold exposure – the attack had been fast, brutal, and effective. Now, Pollamo and Kokr were safely in custody, Vhetin was finally starting to thaw out, and they were almost ready to get off this frozen hellhole of a planet.

Vhetin was still recovering from a mild case of hypothermia and frostbite, courtesy of fighting without heating systems in his suit for almost five minutes longer than he should have. But he'd insisted several times that despite the damage he'd be fine. He'd disappeared into the shadowy back rooms of the facility about an hour ago and hadn’t reappeared since.

Jay wasn’t fooled by his bravado. In fact, she was still a little worried that her partner was more seriously injured than he let on. But she forced herself to remember that he could take care of himself; he'd already proved that time and again. He wasn't one to accept help happily, and he was as stubborn as a an old Trandoshan when it came to not showing weakness. She'd long since learned that it was futile to worry too much about him.

Besides, he was a _Mandalorian_. They were the toughest of the tough, an entire civilization that lived for danger, adventure, and rough times. For _toy soldiers_ — as they were sometimes called — they didn't break easily. And after surviving the hectic battle that had taken place only hours ago, Jay felt that they were both ready for anything.

She was finally settling into the mindset of a bounty hunter, remaining cool and calm even when a normal being would break down and panic. Vhetin's training had honed her senses, setting her on the path to becoming a strong, deadly warrior just like him.

 _Hell,_ she thought as she inched ever closer to the heater, _I_ _’m even close to learning that pistol-spinning trick._ _I'll be a full-fledged merc sooner than I thought._

She’d long ago realized the irony of her situation. Growing up, she hadn't really given any thought to bounty hunters or their trade. She knew they were out there of course, but she'd never met any, never heard of any besides the infamous Boba Fett, and had certainly never expressed any desire to become one. They were part of a different world, a world she had no intention of joining.

And then she'd met Vhetin. In a single day, her limited knowledge of bounty hunters – as well as her entire life – had been turned on its head. Vhetin had opened her eyes to a whole new galaxy hidden just beneath the one she'd known. And though it was technically called the _criminal_ underworld, she failed to see anything _criminal_ in Vhetin's actions.

Sure, he made a living bringing other people to their doom and profiting from their pain. He had no problem killing when necessary and he broke Imperial law with seemingly reckless abandon. But could she honestly say the targets he went after were entirely innocent?

And she wasn’t exactly an innocent civilian herself. She'd made a career in the Imperial military, earning respect and advancement by tallying up hundreds of confirmed kills from the cockpit of her starfighter. She had probably killed more people than Vhetin ever had, now that she really thought about it.

Sekha's words suddenly came back to her, as if echoing from the shadows around her.

“Have you ever stared into the eyes of the being you were about to kill?” Sekha had asked. “Seen the terror, heard the sobbing and the pleading, and pulled the trigger anyway? Have you ever killed in cold blood?"

“N-no _,_ _”_ Jay had stammered back.

As disturbing as the question was, Sekha had had a point. Jay had thought she was tough enough to be a bounty hunter simply because she'd killed before. It had never occurred to her that killing a being in her starfighter, far removed from the actual brutality of death and destruction, was a very different kind of experience.

She remembered the sudden wave of nausea that had washed over her as she'd surveyed the aftermath of Vhetin's fight on Coruscant with the thugs sent to kill them. She remembered the way her stomach had churned at the sight of the carnage, of bodies scorched by the humming blade of his lightsaber pike. She remembered her unease as she watched her partner calmly dispatching his opponents, then just as calmly walking away.

She knew she wasn’t as cold as her partner. She hadn’t even actually killed anyone in that fight. The worst she’d done was knock a few of them unconscious or give them easily treatable blaster wounds.

It all seemed so long ago; Tarron's message of the bounty on Kassh's head, their fight on Coruscant, even the conversation with Sekha only a few days previous. The galaxy had once again changed forever, growing suddenly darker and even more dangerous. Her usual dichotomy of right and wrong had once more been called into question, and –

 _No_ , she suddenly thought. The galaxy was still the same. _She_ was the one who had changed. She was no longer the naive, impressionable young fighter pilot who had worked her way through the Imperial ranks, nor was she the enthusiastic mercenary student eager to learn the tricks of bounty hunting.

She felt as if she'd aged several hundred years in only days. Her wildest imagination couldn’t have conjured up the frantic battle to capture their bounty here on Rhen Var. She couldn’t have possibly imagined the icy feeling of adrenaline as stormtroopers shouted, screamed, and fought all around her. The chaos of battle was an image that would not soon leave her. And that wasn’t even mentioning the deadly snowstorm she had successfully managed to outrun.

She shivered yet again at the mere thought.

In space, sounds were muffled and distant. In the cockpit of her fighter she could hear the screeching _pop_ of her TIE Interceptor’s quad-cannons firing. She could hear excited, sometimes frantic radio chatter. But the din of battle, the explosions and the screams of terror, victory, and pain, were always separated from her by a thick panel of transparisteel and the endless void of space.

On the ground things were different. Battling on the ground she heard every cry of pain, felt the concussive blast of every explosion. She could see every drop of blood that stained the snow and could smell the scent of charred plastoid armor and smoke. She was in the flow of it all, not watching it from behind a bank of technical readouts and heads-up displays.

On the ground, fighting was a different game entirely.

She looked up from the warm light of the heater as Vhetin appeared from one of the back rooms. He melted away from the shadows in his black-gray armor, like a silent hawkbat against the night sky.

“I finally got that comms array in the back working,” he declared, “and I've sent out a beacon to _Void_. The self-pilot program kicked in remotely and she should be here for pickup within a few minutes.”

“Good good,” Tal Wam muttered, sounding like he was talking mostly to himself. The spindly-looking Duros was huddled in his own corner, sniffing at a stale ration bar he'd found in the back room. He wrinkled his nose and tossed it aside. “Good good.”

“For once I agree with him,” Jay said, clambering to her feet and tugging her coat more securely around herself. “I can’t wait to get off this ice ball. How cold do you think it is outside?”

“My HUD says the ambient temperature is hovering at around eighty degrees below zero. But this is summer, after all, and the temperature can get pretty wild this far north. In here, it's a balmy two degrees above.”

“What about these two?” Jay asked, nudging the tightly bound forms of Pollamo and Kokr with the tip of her boot. Kokr spat at her feet while his brother just whimpered and tried unsuccessfully to scurry away. Jay had bound their wrists together while they'd still been unconscious, and all the Rodian accomplished was a pathetic, frenzied wriggling against his tightened restraints.

“They don't have proper gear for the weather,” she said, looking up at her partner. “They'll freeze before we get them to the pickup location.”

“That's not a problem,” Vhetin said. He surveyed their captives, his helmeted gaze slowly resting on one, then the other. Both cringed under the imposing T-visored stare. “I've sent a command to _Void_ to set down right in the middle of Alpha Base's courtyard. We'll only have about thirty meters to cross, then we're back onboard. We’ll have plenty of time.”

“Are you sure?” Jay asked. “I'm not too excited about risking hypothermia a second time. You aren't completely healed from the last time we went outside.”

“I'll be fine,” Vhetin murmured, flexing a gloved hand.

Jay knew he was lying, but still found herself admiring his dedication. He'd fought in the sub-zero temperatures of Rhen Var for almost fifteen minutes with minimal heating systems. He'd succumbed to mild hypothermia and frostbite in the end and she was sure his skin was still raw from the biting cold. But he didn’t look injured in the slightest. He moved with the same grace and poise as always and – after finally warming up after the battle – had gotten right back to business. He looked as fit and deadly now as he ever did, though the full-body Mandalorian armor probably helped.

“What we really need to worry about,” the hunter continued, “is the bounties trying to run while we move them.”

He squatted in front of Kokr and shook his head in mock-disappointment. “I still can't believe that after all our courtesy you've tried to escape _twice_ already. And handcuffed to your brother, you still thought you could run for it? It's a good thing Jay had her stun prod ready to prove you wrong.”

“Screw you, bucket-head,” Kokr spat. “I'm not goin' anywhere. I'd rather freeze out here than be turned over to Sekha. Death would be better than havin' to look that psycho in the eye.”

Jay raised an eyebrow, seeing an opportunity to force a little cooperation out of the two. “Really? And does your brother agree with you?”

Kokr's craggy face darkened and he opened his mouth to say more. Jay beat him to it, though, and turned to Pollamo. “Well?” she asked the one-eyed Rodian. “Do you want to die a slow, painful death, freezing out in the snow? Or would you rather be taken to Sekha to face imprisonment?”

Vhetin's helmeted gaze turned towards her and he cocked his head slightly to one side. In the months they'd trained together Jay had learned to read the subtle cues of his body language; in many ways even the slightest movement from him was just as expressive than any scowl or grin from a normal being's face. And his body language clearly stated his mind: _That isn't true_.

Jay was well aware of the fact that Sekha would likely make Pollamo and Kokr face the slowest and most painful death her devious mind could think up. But if she was going to get any cooperation out of either of them, Pollamo at least had to be fooled. The Rodian was a coward but clearly the brains of the pair. Kokr would follow his brother like the obedient Eiopie he was, regardless of his personal fate.

“Sekha isn't the kindest being in the galaxy,” Jay continued, “but she won't waste valuable time and money to kill you. Trust me.”

The lies were becoming bigger and bigger. If she continued like this she risked losing the bait and revealing her deception. Vhetin was staring at her, showing the slightest sign of approval. Jay paid it no notice; if she was going to sell this her attention had to be solely on Pollamo.

“Now, I know you'd rather stay alive than freeze to death out here. And a life of imprisonment is better than no life at all. Am I right?”

“Don't listen to her!” Kokr snarled. “She's lying! Sekha will rip out our-”

“Listen to the voice of reason,” Jay said quietly, looking the Rodian directly in his single remaining compound eye and trying to appear as honest as possible. “You don't want to die out here, do you?”

“-and stuff them up our-”

“Sekha's a busy woman. She's got much more important things to do than watch a simple thief fry over a single day's income. A _fraction_ of a single day’s income.”

“I...” Pollamo hesitated, his proboscis shriveling up in the Rodian equivalent of a human biting her lip. “I'd prefer to live.”

“Good.” Jay nodded, smiling sweetly. “I knew you'd see it my way.”

“Don't listen to her! She's a lying bitch who's trying to-”

Jay glanced at her partner and gestured to the bearded man. “May I?”

“Go ahead.” Vhetin waved a hand. “Do us all a favor.”

She pulled out her stun prod and pressed it against Kokr's neck. A loud _snap_ echoed through the storage facility and a shower of white-hot sparks flew from the tip of the prod. Kokr immediately slumped over unconscious, cut off mid-sentence.

Jay stood, deactivated the stun prod, and clipped it back onto her belt. “Good,” she said. “I'm glad that's settled. Are you going to cooperate now that your brother's not breathing down your neck?”

Pollamo squeaked and fell silent. She decided to take that as a yes. She headed back towards the northwestern corner of the facility, to their meager pile of supplies. She didn’t get far before Vhetin fell into step next to her.

“Can I have a word with you? Away from the prisoners.”

“If this is about what I just said to Pollamo-”

“It isn't. More important.”

“Then lead the way, I guess.” She stooped, grabbed a water thermos from the pile, and followed him into the back. There was a tiny room there, sealed off from the rest of the facility. Her partner closed the door behind her as she entered the room, which seemed to be a workshop of some kind. There was a large durasteel bench along one wall littered with tools: welders, hydrospanners, dampers, and fusion cutters mostly. It looked like Vhetin had been using the tools to repair his suit’s environmental protection systems, which had shorted out during the battle.

“So what’s so important?” she asked, taking a swig from the water thermos. For some reason the cold had made her throat parched and dry.

Vhetin’s voice was still hoarse. “I'm afraid I have some bad news.”

“Oh good. We haven't had any bad news in hours. I was getting worried.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “When I got the comm relay working I picked up an emergency transmission from another outpost a few hundred kilometers from our location.”

“What did it say?”

“Apparently this outpost's employees made it to another nearby base. They sent out an emergency reinforcement request to the Imperial forces in orbit.”

“Uh-oh.”

She and Vhetin had stormed this base and taken the leaders of the operation hostage. If they were captured now by the defeated Imperials, there would be severe repercussions; arrest, imprisonment, and immediate execution by firing squad was the most likely outcome. But then again, considering she was a wanted fugitive and her partner had a standing bounty on his own head, the Empire might not even bother taking them prisoner.

“We need to bug out fast,” he continued. “But _Void_ won't be here for a few minutes. And a Star Destroyer is already in orbit.”

“Oh kark it all. How much time do we have?”

He opened the door and headed out of the room, moving at a brisk pace. He looked as calm and collected as usual, but she couldn’t miss the way one of his hands clenched into a fist. He was worried, despite his usual calm and collected demeanor. “Not long. The sooner we can get out of here, the better our chances.”

He hit the opening stud of the heavy durasteel door and the barrier rumbled open with a metallic shriek. “But there's one more issue.”

She was about to ask what he was talking about when the door pulled back completely and she saw that the entrance had been entirely buried by the storm. Where once had stood a vehicle entryway leading to the snowy courtyard outside there was now a solid wall of packed white snow, no doubt packed down as hard as duracrete.

Vhetin stepped away from the button and gestured wordlessly to the snowy barricade.

“Okay...” Jay said slowly. It looked as if the snow had completely buried the front entrance, at least ten feet deep. There would be no digging out of that mess. “That complicates things.”

“Yeah. It isn't much of a problem, but it will slow us down.”

“Wait, what? It isn't _much_ of a problem?” Jay said incredulously. She walked up to the wall of snow and pounded on it with her fist. A tiny dent appeared in the rock-hard face of the barrier, but nothing more than that. “This thing might as well be made of durasteel. We aren't going to get through it.”

Vhetin looked from her to the snow wall, scrutinizing it carefully. Then he leveled his left arm towards the barrier of snow and ice and hit a small trigger on the top of his armored gauntlet.

There was a short sputter of flame and a whooshing noise. Then a white-hot inferno erupted from his arm and blasted hard against the barrier. Jay gasped and jumped back from the sudden torrent of fire, covering her ears as a deafening roar filled the storage facility. Vhetin didn't seem bothered by his close proximity to the flood of flame. In fact, he leaned closer to the snow wall, making sure the fire was directed in a focused column against the snow. After only moments, a human-sized depression had melted away.

“Oh,” she said, slowly lowering her hands. “You have a flamethrower.”

“I have a flamethrower,” he echoed, sounding amused. He turned his attention back to the snow and stepped even closer, concentrating the flow of heat tighter against the wall. She had to step back a bit to avoid a tendril of flame that snaked across the face of the barrier like a living creature.

In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. Vhetin's armor was full of various gadgets and equipment. His gear sported everything from missiles to projectile dart guns to – evidently – flamethrowers. He seemed to pride himself on being prepared for any situation. Including this one, apparently.

He turned a small dial on the side of his gauntlet and the wash of fire narrowed into a small pillar of red-orange light that tunneled into the snow and sent heated water splashing back into the room. Even after putting distance between herself and the pyrotechnics, Jay could still feel the heat of the flames against her arms and chest. It was a welcome change from the frigid atmosphere of the warehouse.

“Where was this when we were freezing to death a few hours ago?” she inquired, shouting over the roar of the flamethrower.

“I had to conserve the fuel,” her partner replied. “I suspected the storm might have penned us in here. Emergencies only, you know?”

Water sloshed down around her boots and ran across the floor, slowly spreading back into the storage facility. When the miniature flood reached Kokr's limp form, the man sputtered and growled, “What the kark?”

Tal Wam scurried forward, stun prod raised excitedly. But Jay held out a hand to stop him. “No. We're going to need him conscious of we're going to get them out of here.”

The Duros looked crestfallen and settled for kicking his former employer in the side before retreating back to his corner. Jay, meanwhile, began gathering up their supplies. This wouldn't take long, and as soon as they had an opening to escape they needed to take it. The Empire would be here soon and she wanted to be long gone by the time they finally showed up.

~~~~~~~~

Vhetin grunted as water splashed back against his helmet. His HUD software sent a minuscule electrical charge along the surface of his visor that made the condensation sputter and evaporate, clearing his view.

“Okay,” he called over his shoulder. “I'm almost through the first couple feet. Jay, go ahead and gather up our stuff. We're going to need to get out of here quick.”

“Already done,” her partner reported. She zipped up her bulky overcoat once more while Tal Wam gathered the prisoners and prepared them for travel back out into the frigid wasteland of Rhen Var. “Where's _Void_? Close, I hope?”

“She's here and holding position above the outpost,” Vhetin grunted, increasing the fuel flow to his flamethrower and causing the flames the fan out in an even greater arc. His arm was sunk into the snow up to his shoulder, and water was now pouring down out of the makeshift tunnel in a miniature waterfall.

Jay slung her pack over her shoulder and motioned for Tal Wam to haul the bounties to their feet. “Okay. We're ready when you are, Stripes.”

Vhetin nodded and leaned even further into the hole. Soon his entire upper body was inside the tunnel he'd made. Jay slung her supply pack over her shoulders and made sure her gloves were safely pulled down past her wrists. She hadn’t come this far to get frostbitten now.

“Okay,” Vhetin called from inside the tunnel. He motioned for them to follow him into the melted passageway. “Come on. I've got our exit.”

Jay activated her stun prod and waved it at their prisoners. “You heard the Mando,” she said. “On your feet.”

Pollamo whimpered and obediently struggled to a standing position. Kokr looked as if he was going to try and stay right where he was, glaring at Jay without moving. She poked him in the ribs with the stun prod and he grew dramatically more obedient.

Vhetin rose onto his hands and knees into the tunnel and began punching a bigger hole to the outside. His fist broke through the brittle crust of ice that covered the surface of the snow, creating a small hole through which a bright beam of sunlight came streaming.

A quick blast of flame widened the hole enough to serve as a viable escape route. He could hear _Void_ _’s_ engines rumbling nearby and could even see clouds of snow kicked up from the downdraft of her engines. He sent a remote activation signal to the ship’s navicomputer and transmitted coordinates for a quick touchdown. A shadow passed momentarily overhead as the spearhead-shaped freighter moved to obey his commands.

He heard a scraping sound and a cry of surprise from the tunnel behind him and called down, “Careful. The melted snow and ice made the floor a little slippery.”

“Slip slip,” Tal Wam agreed from somewhere behind him. “Slip slip!”

Vhetin braced his arms against the huge snowdrift that had covered the storage facility and hauled himself out of the tunnel. The air was frigid and the wind bit right through his suit, even with the environmental systems repaired. They would need to make this fast or risk someone getting hurt from the cold.

Pollamo and Kokr came first. Since their hands were tied and Vhetin was in no mood to release them, he had to pull them up by hooking his arms under the Rodian's shoulders and hauling both their weight through the tunnel. Jay and Tal Wam helped by pushing on Kokr from below.

“No!” Kokr suddenly yelled. He grabbed hold of either side of the tunnel exit, digging his gloved fingers into the crust of ice. “No, I 'aint goin' back to Sekha! I'm dyin' right here, on _my_ terms!”

“No... you're... not,” Jay growled from below, and shoved harder on the man’s barrel-like chest.

Kokr’s icy handholds didn’t last. After a few tense moments Vhetin, Pollamo, and his brother suddenly broke free of the tunnel's exit and landed in a heap next to the large melted hole. Vhetin quickly disentangled himself from the bounties before they could grab at any of his gear, then activated his own stun prod and jabbed Kokr right under the chin. The man twitched and shouted in pain.

“Try something like that again,” Vhetin panted, “and I’ll kill you myself and collect the reward for just your head.”

As he clambered to his feet again he saw Tal Wam scramble into the open air, his long arms and legs allowing him to pull himself up with little problem. Jay was right behind him, clambering through the hole with a little more difficulty.

“Thanks,” Jay said as Vhetin offered her a hand. She planted her feet along the snow wall and scrambled up into the open air. She staggered, off balance, and cursed as the cold air hit her full in the face. Her hands were quickly shoved into her jacket pockets and she hopped up and down in protest.

“Kriff,” she muttered. Her voice was muffled behind her protective face mask. “Even with the sun shining, this place is colder than a mynock cave.”

The snow had covered more than they’d thought; Vhetin could now see only the tops of the buildings scattered around the Imperial listening post. The rest had been completely buried under meters of snow. But despite the freezing cold, the sky was now clear and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

A small flock of furry tundra birds - an example of Rhen Var's small amount of native wildlife – flew over their heads, squawking and swooping low over the snowy ground as _Void_ settled down on its landing struts not far away. With a mechanized rumble the entry ramp slid down and the doors opened, beckoning them inside with promise of warmth and shelter from the tundra.

“Okay,” Vhetin said, patting Jay’s heavily-padded shoulder. “Our ride is here. Let’s get moving.”

He grabbed Pollamo and Kokr both by the back of the neck and half-dragged the two helpless bounties toward the ship. Tal Wam sprinted past them, up the entry ramp, and disappeared inside without another word.

“Kriff yourself, bucket-head,” Kokr spat as they marched toward the ship. “I swear, as soon as I get out of these restraints, I’m gonna—”

“Your days of making threats are over,” Vhetin growled. “We caught you fair and square. The only thing you’re going to be doing now is waiting for permanent housing in Sekha’s torture chambers.”

Pollamo squeaked fearfully, but Kokr spat again and continued his rant. “You’ve made yourself a dangerous enemy, bucket-head. Taking this contract is gonna be your last mistake. I got friends, you hear me? Powerful friends who—”

Vhetin turned to ask Jay to jab the man with her stun prod again, but she wasn’t behind him. She was still standing next to the melted hole that had led them out. Her hands were cupped around her eyes and she was scanning the horizon, head cocked slightly to one side.

“Come on, Jay. We're on a tight schedule here, remember?”

She held up a gloved hand and hissed, “Shh! Do you hear that?”

Vhetin froze in his steps and listened intently, cocking his head like his partner. He heard the breeze blowing past his helmet, heard the distant calls of the tundra birds. He could even hear Tal Wam banging around inside the ship, no doubt searching for a safe corner to curl up. But there was nothing that would cause Jay such concern.

He eventually shrugged, but tightened his grip on the bounties just in case. “I don't hear anything.”

Jay was silent for a few moments more. Then she visibly stiffened. He was about to ask what was wrong when she turned and sprinted toward the ship. “Probably because I'm more used it than you. Move. _Now!_ ”

He followed, still confused, and tuned the sensitivity in his helmet's audio receivers to maximum sensitivity.

It didn’t take long to hear what had caused Jay such alarm: from far away came a distant screech over the air, like some kind of animal caught up in its final death throes. It warbled and echoed across the tundra toward them, thrumming with a distinct mechanical pulse. Everyone in the galaxy knew that particular sound.

TIE fighters.

“ _Shab_ ,” Vhetin muttered and broke into a run for the ship, dragging the bounties with him.

Jay was right beside him. “Damn imperials must have found us faster than you thought.”

They entered the ship and Vhetin punched the door controls on his way past. The landing ramp retracted and the doors slid shut with a resounding _boom,_ sealing them off from the winter-bound world outside. The endless, bitter cold of Rhen Var was effectively sealed off once and for all.

“Jay!” he shouted as he sprinted towards the cockpit. He tore his cold-weather gear off as he ran. If this came to a fight, he’d need all the mobility he could get. “Get the bounties secured!”

“Already on it,” she called back. She was also shedding her jacket and gloves as she shoved the prisoners into the holding cells. “Just get us out of here!”

He barely waited for the cockpit door to open completely. He slipped in as soon as he was able and threw himself at the console. An enemy contact alarm blared through the small room, whining insistently and flashing red lights overhead. He didn't even bother with the pre-flight system check and instead just warmed the sublight engines and grasped the control yoke, sliding into the pilot's seat with a breathless huff.

The door hissed open again and Jay appeared, panting and pale. She was hopping up and down on one foot, trying to toss her winter boots aside as she approached. “Why haven't we left yet? Those TIEs will be all over us!”

“I'm going as fast as I can,” Vhetin growled, tightening his grip on the controls. “In the meantime, get on the guns and watch our six.”

“Already on it,” Jay said and fell into the gunner's seat.

The ship trembled as it lifted off and both Vhetin and Jay fastened their safety restraints; those TIES were heading for the base with purpose, and _Void_ was definitely showing up on their scanners by now. The slate-gray ships screamed over a distant snow dune, close enough that Vhetin could see the spray of snow kicked up by their engines as they passed. There were eight of them, swooping low over the terrain and headed straight for them.

“Contacts,” Jay reported. “They’re entering firing range now.”

But she didn’t open fire. She just watched her readouts, eyes narrowed and fingers hovering over the controls as the TIEs drew closer and closer. _Void_ rotated in the air and blasted off into the sky, shaking the deck beneath their feet, but they weren’t traveling nearly fast enough to lose their pursuers. The Imperial ships drew closer and closer, gaining on them with every passing second.

“Jay,” he said slowly. “Any time now...”

Jay didn't answer. Her attention was completely focused on the display in front of her. He was about to object again when she suddenly mashed the firing studs of the control stick. The deck kicked under his feet and a muffled _boom_ reverberated through the ship as _Void_ _’s_ ventral cannons fired. Vhetin threw a glance at the ship's motion tracker and saw one enemy contact disappear.

An explosion rocked through the ship as the fighters passed over them and opened up with their cannons, almost ripping the two out of their seats. An alarm blared through the cockpit and the lights dimmed to an emergency red glow.

“Turbolaser hits!” Vhetin called, typing commands into the ship's control panel. “They strafed us! Starboard shields are at sixty-five percent!”

Jay scowled and leaned forward in her seat. Her right hand danced over the controls while her left manned the joystick. She pulled the joystick's trigger and the cannons fired four times. She cursed and shot again, three more times. No contacts disappeared from the scanners now.

“Damn it!” She slammed her hand against the display. “They're too fast!”

“Do your best,” Vhetin said as he pulled back on the control yoke and sent the ship into a sharp ascent from the planet surface. The TIEs came screaming back into view, breaking across the bow of the ship and opening fire on the port and starboard sides. He pulled the ship into a tight spiral, roaring off in the opposite direction and avoiding most of the blows. The shields dipped to dangerously low levels as they absorbed some of the luckier shots, then slowly began to charge once more.

Jay muttered something and tensed as the TIEs swooped around in hot pursuit. She pulled the trigger twice and the motion tracker showed two enemy contacts disappear from the screen. She did not acknowledge the small victory. She hunched lower in her seat, eyes raking over the display in front of her.

He pushed the engines until they were running at 120 percent capacity, but it was still too slow to outrun the smaller, more agile fighters. The Imperial ships passed twice more, draining shipwide shields to almost 20 percent. Jay managed to pick off two more but it wasn’t enough. There were three still attacking and _Void_ 's motion tracker showed eight more on the way.

“Screw this,” Vhetin muttered, and pushed the engines to 250 percent. The ship rocked violently but held course for the lower atmosphere. If they could break into orbit, the TIEs would be forced to fall back. Without deflector shields, they wouldn’t be able to survive the exit burn at such a steep trajectory.

“Hey!” Jay was almost thrown out of her seat again. “Do you know how hard it is to shoot like this?”

“Just keep them off my back,” Vhetin snapped, booting up the navicomputer and typing in coordinates for the nearest star system. They needed to be able to jump to lightspeed as soon as they hit open space. “TIEs are fragile ships. We should lose them once we hit the mesosphere.”

No sooner had the words left his helmet's vocoder than the sky outside the ship became tinged with red. The TIEs were forced to slow and pull back, but four of them attempted to follow. Vhetin stubbornly held course and the shields flared as they entered mid-atmosphere. Flames crawled around the cockpit's transparisteel viewport forcing Vhetin to hand control over to the self-pilot system. He could no longer pilot the ship at these velocities, especially with turbolaser bolts detonating all around them. A deep rumble began to drown out sound in the cockpit, and Vhetin set his audio receivers to filter out the sound.

The sound of screeching, rending metal echoed from further back in the ship, and Vhetin looked over at the ship status display.

“We've lost a half-meter of armor plating from the port stabilizers!” he called over the roar of the ship's exit burn. “We can't keep this up much longer.”

Jay pushed away from the gunnery console. This deep in the atmosphere, the guns were useless anyway. She swiveled to face the front viewport and murmured, “Keep your fingers crossed that we-”

The ship bucked as one of the nearest TIE fighters exploded, torn apart by the strain of following _Void_ 's exit burn. Its octagonal wings spiraled away from the pod-like cockpit and slammed into _Void_ ’s side. The deck lurched, sending them hurtling forward against their crash webbing.

“Hull breach!” Jay shouted over the rumbling that filled the ship and the newest blaring sirens. “A TIE wing tore through the hull. There's a half-meter tear along the port side of the ship, and we're venting atmosphere _fast!_ ”

“Seal off that room!” Vhetin barked as two more of the TIEs exploded in bright bursts of flame and ion discharge. Now, only one remained.

Even as he watched, the final TIE spiraled out of control and lost power, dipping back into the stratosphere and plummeting back to the ground far, far below. As soon as the fighter’s stalling engines sputtered back to life, it roared away with the rest of its patrol. The TIEs circled below like angry fish swarming around a freshly-rescued swimmer, then screeched off and headed toward the south.

Jay sat back in her seat and wiped sweat from her forehead. She covered her face with both hands for a moment, then let out a shaky, relieved laugh. Her voice was muffled as she said, “That was too close.”

Moments later they broke through the upper atmosphere and rocketed into open space. The flames outside the cockpit dimmed until only the endless black void was visible. Vhetin breathed a sigh of relief and eased back on the engines, which had been redlining for over two minutes now.

“It’s a rare day that someone outruns a squad of TIEs,” he breathed. “I almost didn’t think _Void_ was up to the—”

The cockpit was suddenly thrown into shadow as the triangular mass of a Star Destroyer passed above them. _Void_ shook violently as the city-sized ship soared over them, the Destroyer's massive engines letting out a deafening, thunderous rumble that consumed the world as it went. It seemed to go on forever, stretching out ahead of them for almost a mile before its giant, blinding blue-white engines finally came into view.

“Oh shit,” Vhetin said, hunching over the controls. Within the blink of an eye, the engines were pushed into the red again and _Void_ shot forward with unnatural speed and a scream of tortured engines. The comm crackled to life.

“ _This is Imperial Star Destroyer_ Lazarus,” a cultured, Imperial voice said, “ _hailing unidentified criminal vessel. Break off your course immediately and proceed to the designated coordinates for search and seizure. Fail to comply, and we will open fire._ _”_

“Oh no,” Jay murmured, eyes wide.

As they watched, the steel-gray ship began to turn in front of them. The city-sized dreadnought rotated, coming about so its main compliment of port-side weapons were aiming straight for them. Hundreds of turbolaser batteries – each one with more than enough power to blast _Void_ into oblivion – began to train on them. The entire front viewport was filled with the contoured surface of the Destroyer's hull.

“ _Unidentified vessel_ ,” the Imperial said again. “ _This is your final warning. Break off your course immediately._ _”_

Vhetin cursed and yanked the controls back. _Void_ tilted violently, rocketing toward the slate-gray surface of the capital ship in a desperate climb for open space. There was still a slim avenue of escape if they continued up, but the Destroyer’s bulk would impede them very soon.

“They're trying to cut us off from our hyperspace exit!” Jay cried in disbelief. Seconds later she shouted and covered her head as sickly green turbolaser fire began to explode all around them. The onboard computers began blaring alarms again, and a single nearby detonation drained the shields all the way to fifteen percent.

Vhetin struck his flat palm against the navicomputer box. It buzzed and informed him they were still a few seconds away from locked-in coordinates. Ahead of them, the Star Destroyer finished rotating into place and brought its building-sized turbolasers to bear on the ship. A swarm of TIE fighters were pouring from its ventral docking bay, spilling out into space like a cloud of gunmetal gray and shimmering transparisteel. Within moments they’d be cut off by a veritable army of Imperial forces..

“Get. This. Thing. _Moving_!” Jay shouted, still covering her head. A bank of holomonitors next to her cracked and exploded, showering her with sparks.

Over the din, the navicomputer finally chimed a completion tone. With a frantic shout, Vhetin leaned forward against his crash webbing, ignoring the detonations of turbolaser bolts all around him, and shoved the hyperspace lever forward.

A strange feeling of weightlessness settled into the pit of his stomach as the engines charged with a building whine. The stars stretched into streaks ahead of them, spinning in dizzying arcs of light. Still too slow; the Destroyer was inching into their way and would soon cut off their exit. Vhetin shoved the lever forward again, then again and again with a shout of, “ _Come on!_ ”

Then, with a warped detonation of light and sound, _Void_ blasted forward into the multi-dimensional world of hyperspace and their view morphed into a spinning tunnel of blue white streaks. Rhen Var and the Star Destroyer _Lazarus_ were left far, far behind.

An all-encompassing silence suddenly filled the ship. Jay stared straight ahead, her eyes wide. Vhetin was doing the same; barely moving, barely breathing, just thinking, _Am I dead? Are we all dead?_

He looked down at the motion tracker and saw it clear of hostile contacts. The rest of the ship was functioning normally, save for a slight coolant leak off of the damaged stabilizers and the overheating sublight engines. One of the storage areas was still sealed off from the hull breach, but it didn’t look like any of the cargo within had been lost. Armor plating along _Void_ ’s hull was shaved paper-thin in some places, but it was still holding together. _They_ were still holding together.

They sat in disbelieving silence. Then Jay let out a short huff and fell forward against her crash webbing. When she looked up, her face was pale and sweaty, but smiling.

“We made it,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “I don't believe it, but we actually _made_ it!”

Vhetin let out an explosive breath and slumped forward against the control console, covering his helmeted head with both hands. Jay laughed and punched the air in celebration, letting out a joyous whoop of a victory cry. She collapsed back in her seat and ran her hands through her messy and disheveled hair.

“Are all your getaways this close?”

“Not always.” He shook his head and listened to his heart still pounding in his ears. After taking a few deep and calming breaths, he sat up in his seat with a relieved sigh. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” she laughed. She sounded like she barely believed it herself. “I’m fine. How are the passengers?”

Vhetin hit another button on the command console and a holo of the cage room shimmered into existence. The two bounties were sprawled on the ship floor and twitching; the shaking of the ship had probably thrown them into the energy field penning them in and knocked them unconscious. Tal Wam was in one corner of the room, clutching at his stun prod as if it were a lifesaver.

“Everyone's fine,” he reported. “A little banged up, but fine.”

“Thank the Emperor,” Jay sighed in relief, the grimaced and covered her mouth with one hand. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

They sat in silence for a long time, catching their breath. Jay eventually cleared her throat and sighed, “So… what now?”

Vhetin hadn’t thought that far ahead, caught up in the adrenaline and heat of the battle. He quickly turned to the nearest databank and began typing in commands. “Um… according to the navicomputer, we're headed to the nearest Imperial-free system. From there, we'll jump to Coruscant and drop off the bounties. Hopefully Sekha will point us in the right direction from there.”

Jay shook her head and stood from her seat. Her balance wobbled a little; the adrenaline obviously hadn’t worn off for her either. “Sounds good. I'm going to head back and get some rest. Is that all right?”

Be my guest,” Vhetin said, standing and following her out of the cockpit. “I may even do the same. There isn't much to do while we're in hyperspace anyway.”

“Good to know. Wake me when the entire galaxy isn't trying to kill us, will you?”

He chuckled dryly. “Sounds good. And Jay?”

She paused and half-turned back to him. He inclined his head and said, “Congratulations. You successfully bagged your first bounty.”

She hesitated, then her face broke into a wide smile.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did, didn’t I?”


	2. Revelations and Retribution

Jay settled back in the copilot's seat and put her hands behind her head, closing her eyes and letting out a quiet sigh.

It was six hours after their death-defying escape from Rhen Var. She had tried to get some sleep, but found it impossible considering all that they had just been through. She'd eventually settled for dozing off in the cockpit, where she'd at least know if anything was going wrong.

As far as she could tell the ship was running fine and there were no problems to speak of. She couldn’t be entirely sure of course, as the ship's systems were unlike any she'd seen before and marked with angular Mandalorian script. But she was fairly confident that her interpretation of the strange readouts and displays filled with _Mando_ _’a_ reports was fairly accurate. They’d need some repairs once they reached a safe port, but nothing major.

Vhetin was still in his quarters, probably more successful in getting some well-deserved rest than she'd been. She'd debated checking up on him, but quickly decided she didn’t want to disturb his rest.

 _Let him sleep_ , she thought. _He deserves it as much as the rest of us._

So she relaxed against her seat and carefully placed her feet up on an empty area of the control console, closing her eyes and letting out a sigh of relief. She was confident that now she could finally relax and not worry about being killed in the next ten minutes.

She didn’t know how long she dozed. The gentle beeping of the various control consoles and the rumble of the ship under her boots was strangely soothing and lulled her into a deep sleep. It still seemed like only seconds, though, before she was being roused from her rest once more.

She heard a quiet beep from the command console; a soft sound that nonetheless shattered the silence of the cockpit. She opened a single eye and saw that the blue comm light was flashing. _Void_ had an incoming call.

She opened her other eye and frowned. That shouldn't be possible. Comm waves couldn't travel fast enough to reach a ship in hyperspace. The multi-dimensional 'otherspace' was a virtual dead-zone for communications. But the comm was blinking all the same, just as if the ship had an incoming message.

She sat up straight in her seat and glanced around the cockpit. If this was a message for Vhetin, she couldn't very well answer for him. She may be his partner, but they weren't _that_ good friends. But the light was flashing faster now, and he apparently wasn't seeing the comm light in his private quarters.

She hit the intership comm button and said, “Vhetin? You've got a message. You might want to get up here.”

There was no response. She waited almost half a minute, then said, “Vhetin? Hello? We have a message. Are you there?”

Still no reply. So she sighed, moved over to the pilot's seat, and clicked the flashing comm button. Static filled the cockpit for a moment, then everything went deathly quiet.

Jay frowned. _That's not normal_.

“Hello?” she asked slowly. “Who is this?”

No sound issued from the cockpit's speakers. She thought it was an equipment malfunction for a moment. But when she listened carefully, she could hear some kind of static filtering through the transmission. A sharp tone, almost too quiet to be heard, could be heard through the noise, almost like a faint signal was linking up with _Void_ ’s systems.

“State your business or I'm cutting comms,” Jay said. “And I-”

A loud burst of jarbled static cut her off, then a smooth female voice filtered through over the transmission. Jay jumped and instantly fell silent as the woman’s voice began to speak in short, terse sentences.

“ _I warned that idiot Matele, and I'm going to warn you as well: stay away from Kassh. He's my bounty._ ”

“What?” Jay said, taken aback for a moment. “What are you-”

“ _If you keep hunting him_ ,” the woman interrupted, “ _I'll find you before you can even get close to him. And when I do, I'll grind your skull under my boot. He's_ my _bounty, and_ I'm _claiming the reward_.”

“I don't-”

“ _I've been hunting since you were just a kid dreaming about fast speeders and big blasters. But I_ _’m sending this message because I respect you as a fellow hunter. Cross me and I'll make sure you end up dead_.”

There was a pause, then the woman said, “ _Consider yourself warned._ ”

The comm channel cut off with a sputter of white noise. After a few moments, the speakers automatically shut down, filling the cockpit with uneasy silence. The blue comm light dimmed, then died completely. Jay was left staring at the comm unit with wide eyes.

 _Who the hell was that?_ Whoever that was didn't sound friendly, and they sure as hell sounded like they meant business.

She didn't know what to do about this. Vhetin had once said something about hostile competition, but it didn't raise her hopes at all.

“Bounty hunting is a dangerous profession on any given day,” he'd told her. “But when other hunters get involved, you begin to walk a very fine line, and things get especially treacherous.”

“How so?” she'd asked.

“Because once other hunters join in the fray, you suddenly have well-trained mercs gunning at each other – and at you – from all directions. All their intellect and strategy, all their ferocity and bloodthirstiness, working at cross-purposes. And when there's a pile of credits involved, things only get worse. It's like throwing a pail of chum into a tank of razor sharks. A feeding frenzy.”

If this mysterious threat was just the beginning of other competition for Kassh, then things were going to get nastier than even Vhetin had predicted.

So she tapped the intership comm button again and said, “Vhetin, you need to get here now. We've got a problem.”

~~~~~~~~

Vhetin knelt in the pitch-black, dressed only in his simple combat pants with his eyes closed and his head bowed. He felt his heartbeat pounding a slow, steady rhythm in his chest. The air was comfortably cool against his bare skin and he shivered slightly as he concentrated on the all-encompassing hum of the ship's engines. He basked in the deep, quiet rumble that had always seemed to calm him no matter how tense he was.

And for what he was about to do, he'd need every ounce of calm and serenity he could muster.

He let out a long breath and placed his hands on the warped piece of metal shrapnel lying in front of him. He couldn't see it directly in the gloom but he knew every minuscule detail: the blackened jagged edges, the polished chromium finish on what little undamaged area was left, the multitude of tiny scuff marks, and the intricate black symbol that had been cut in half by its proximity to the burnt edge. He had attempted to match the symbol to all known Imperial logos and codes, smuggler's emblems, even gang logos. His searches had come up empty time and time again.

His fingers quivered slightly as they brushed the cool surface of the metal. An electric charge seemed to go through him at the feel of the durasteel beneath his fingertips and he shivered again. He let out a shaky breath, feeling his heart pounding in his throat from anticipation.

He sunk deeper into his meditation, letting all his built-up tension slowly drain from his body. His body quivered harder and felt his eyes roll back in his head to an angle that was almost painful. The sound of the ship's engines seemed to fade into the distance as he drew further and further into himself. After a few moments, he could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing but the metal beneath his fingers.

There was a bright spark of light in his mind’s eye and he winced, his face pulling into a strained frown. The atmosphere around him became tense and charged as if the air itself suddenly pulsed with static electricity. He felt the hairs on his arms and neck standing on end.

Another flash of light, this time accompanied by a loud rushing noise in his head. A third flash and his head jerked to one side as if he'd been struck. He let out a quiet grunt and pushed down harder on the metal as his fingers began to slide off of it. He couldn’t let go of the shrapnel. Not yet.

He heard a new sound, different than the loud rushing in his head. He easily identified it as the labored scream of a damaged starship's engines, stuttering and popping as they struggled to maintain speed. The light in his mind turned deep scarlet and began to blink slowly. An alarm rang out somewhere in the infinite distance and Vhetin let out a gasp, his face now the perfect image of agony.

A voice cut through the noise of the alarm. Rame's voice, also echoing like the siren blaring between his temples.

“ _Get him out of there! He's still alive!_ ”

Vhetin let out an inarticulate groan and pushed harder on the metal. Rame's voice grew louder and clearer. “ _Help me, damn it!_ ”

“Before,” Vhetin’s voice was a strangled gasp. He _knew_ all this already. “I need what happened _before!_ ”

Brianna's smooth, cultured accent now joined Rame's voice, though it was younger and higher in pitch than her current Coruscanti drawl. “ _Move fast_ ,” she cried, her voice tinged with panic. “ _The engines are going to go any second now! One, two, three,_ pull!”

A splitting bolt of agony shot through Vhetin's head and he fell forward onto his hands and knees, barely managing to keep his hands on the piece of metal. His breathing was labored, and his eyes rolled wildly in his head. He let out a moan and choked out, “ _Before!_ ”

A new voice. Now it was Jay's voice that suddenly said, “ _Vhetin? You've got a message. You might want to get up here._ _”_

“No! I... need-”

Brianna's voice again. “ _It looks like his back was flayed open by that shrapnel. Holy_ kriff _I can see his_ ribs _. This guy's one tough_ shabuir.”

“ _We need to get him back to the farm. He won't last long out here._ ”

“ _Who do you think he is?_ ”

“ _I have no clue. It's hard to even see his face through all the blood. Can you just shut up and help me carry him?_ ”

“ _Vhetin? Hello? We have a message. Are you there?_ _”_

“ _Whoever you are, buddy, you've had one hell of an accident._ _”_

The roaring in his head slowly subsided, dwindling to a quiet tingling buzz behind his eyes. The flashes of light came slower now, pulsing through his mind with decreased regularity until they eventually faded completely. Vhetin was left alone once more in the pitch darkness with his stomach churning and his temples pounding uncomfortably.

“ _Don't worry_ ,” Brianna's voice whispered in the dark. “ _You're going to be all right. We've got you. You're safe with us._ ”

Vhetin collapsed, breathing hard, and let go of the metal. His heart hammered in his ears and his body shivered with exertion as if he'd just finished a full training workout. Cold sweat beaded his forehead and his gaze was glassy and glazed when he opened his eyes. With harsh, jerky motions, he scrambled over to the waste bin, grasped it in both hands, and vomited.

As soon as his stomach had stopped rolling, he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and, with a shout of rage, threw the piece of shrapnel across the room. It hit the far bulkhead with a _clang_ and fell to his cot. He collapsed to the floor again and cradled his head in his hands. His breath was coming in gulping gasps and his heart would not stop beating out of control.

 _Failure!_ Months of meditation practice, of calming his mind and trying not to count the days till he tried again and still... _nothing_!

He slammed his fist into the durasteel floor and the blow released a loud _clang_ that echoed through the room. Brianna had said that all he needed was time, but that was obviously a load of _osik_. He'd waited four months to try again, giving his mind time to rest after the last attempts, and he couldn't penetrate any deeper than before.

 _Four months_ of waiting. Wasted!

He sighed and sat back, trying to slow his pounding heart. He took a deep breath, rubbing his now-sore knuckles, and returned to his earlier meditative position. His heartbeat began to slowly ease, his limbs growing stronger and ceasing their overexerted shaking. After a few long moments he was calm again — or at least as calm as he could manage, given the circumstances.

 _“_ It’s okay,” he said through gritted his teeth, forcing himself to say the words aloud. “It's not the end of the universe. It'll just… it’ll just take more time.”

The intercom buzzed and Jay's voice split his angry silence. “ _Vhetin, you need to get up here now. We've got a problem._ ”

He sighed and shook his head. _Pull it together, man. You've got a job to do._

Then he grabbed his armored flak vest and helmet and headed for the door.

~~~~~~~~

“What's the problem?” Vhetin asked, stepping through the cockpit door in full body armor, as usual. “Did the nav computer send you a mass shadow warning?”

“No,” Jay replied, moving over to the copilot's seat once more. “I just got a weird message. While we were in hyperspace, which isn’t supposed to happen.”

Her partner grunted in response and she cocked her head at the tense note in his voice. “Are you all right? You seem—”

“I’m fine,” he interrupted curtly. “Just… didn’t sleep well.”

“Nightmares?” she ventured.

“Sure.” He slid into the pilot's seat. “This message you mentioned. Did you record it?”

“Of course.”

He triggered the message and listened intently without saying a word. As the woman's voice growled, “ _Consider yourself warned_ ,” he frowned deeper beneath his helmet.

“Was that it?” he asked, turning to his partner. When she nodded, he sat back in his seat and said, “Well, I think I can solve the mystery of how the message got to us while we're in hyperspace. It looks like someone dropped a hyperspace beacon set to lock onto _Void_ 's transponder signal.”

“A hyperspace beacon?” Jay asked. “Isn't that a little archaic?”

Hyperspace communication beacons had been used in the fledgling Old Republic to spread priority orders to capital ships in hyperspace. A carrier ship would drop one of the round, black comm beacons along another ship’s hyperspace route. After a time, a ship would pass with a transponder signal matching that of the comm beacon. The beacon would then send out a small message, usually text only, in the microsecond it took for the ship to pass. It was ancient technology; no one had used beacons like that in over nine hundred years.

Vhetin shook his head. “Galactic governments abandoned hyperspace beacons centuries ago, but bounty hunters, pirates, and smugglers have been using them for emergency transmissions for generations now.”

He passed his hand over the dome of his helmet, like a helmetless person running their fingers through their hair. “You were right. We do have a problem. Whoever dropped that beacon obviously wants us to give up on the Kassh contract. And they seem to know quite a lot about me and my ship.”

When Jay stared at him uncomprehendingly, he explained, “They knew _Void_ 's ship transponder code, which has the best counter-tracing software that credits can buy. And they knew which hyperspace route we were traveling along, which means they knew we were on Rhen Var and why.”

“So basically they know who we are, where we are, and where we're headed,” Jay clarified, counting off on her fingers.

“And who we're hunting. All with a precision that makes me uncomfortable,” he said, leaning forward and tapping a command into the control panel. The ship blared an alarm, which he quickly silenced. “Hold on,” he said as the ship trembled beneath their feet. “I'm bringing us out of hyperspace for an emergency stop. I need to get this recording to Tarron.”

He pulled back a series of levers and the ship groaned as the hyperdrive reversed itself. They were both jerked forward in their seats from the force of the emergency deceleration. The stars resolved into their usual twinkling pinpoints as the ship ripped itself back into realspace. There was a moment of dizzying vertigo as the ship decelerated, then _Void_ settled back to sublight speed and began floating aimlessly through space, her engines powered down to a gentle hum.

He quickly typed a quick series of commands into _Void_ 's control console and the comm unit powered up with a whine. He typed in a series of outgoing numbers and hit the transmitter button.

“Tarron,” he said into the comm's vocoder. “Tarron Matele, come in. This is freelance transport _Void_ , broadcasting for Tarron Matele.”

“ _I'm here, Vhetin_ ,” the Journeyman Protector's deep voice replied, the transmission slightly garbled with static and other interference. Jay found herself admiring his punctuality — he’d answered within seconds of being called. “ _What's up?_ ”

“We just got a threat message from another bounty hunter. They dropped it through a hyperspace beacon. I need to know who sent it.”

There was a chuckle from the other end of the comm. “ _Why? Feeling threatened? Worried you'll run into some serious competition?_ ”

“They may have bugged the ship. Maybe even booby-trapped it.”

“ _Ah. I see._ _”_ There was a moment of worried silence over the comm. “ _Transmit the message. I'll get it analyzed and get back to you as soon as I can._ ”

“Thanks.”

Vhetin sent out the requested information and thanked Tarron before signing off comms. Then he sighed and sat back in his seat, running a hand along the smooth dome of his helmet again. “Tarron will dig up everything he can for us. The sooner he can track down our competition, the better off we'll be.”

“You're worried,” Jay said. It wasn't a question. “Who do you think is after us?”

Vhetin shrugged. “I don’t know. But someone went through a lot of effort to get that message to us. And if other hunters are finding out that Kassh is loose again...”

“You're worried about Boba Fett, aren't you?” Jay guessed.

It was a good guess. The name was feared all across the galaxy. Encased from head-to-toe in Mandalorian combat armor scarred and pockmarked from countless battles and bounty hunting missions, Boba Fett was a larger-than-life boogieman for all manner of beings on both sides of the law. Even other Mandalorians feared being the target of his legendary cunning and battle prowess.

His ties with the New Order only served to solidify his reputation. While Darth Vader was seen as the iron fist of the Empire, there were limits to what he'd soil his shiny black boots doing. And where Vader failed, they sent in Fett. He inspired fear in all those who found themselves in his path and was able to charge exorbitant fees for his work. It was said that many bounties simply gave up running when they learned he was coming, rather than be subjected to painful tortures and punishments for attempting to flee.

Now _that_ was a serious reputation.

Vhetin, meanwhile, was nodding solemnly. Fett wasn’t the one who had dropped the beacon – the voice in the transmission had belonged to a woman – but a reward as hefty as the one on Kassh’s head might just pique his interest.

“Any self-respecting hunter would be a fool not to worry about Fett,” her partner said. “He's so good, no target has ever escaped from him.”

“I have trouble believing that,” Jay said, leaning back in the pilot's seat and folding her arms. “The guy would have to be some kind of Force-user.”

“Or a supersoldier?” Vhetin said, an amused note in his voice.

“Maybe. I don't know. But he can’t be _that_ special. You've never lost a bounty, right?”

“Actually, I have,” Vhetin said, swiveling in his seat and powering up the hyperdrive again. “There have been a couple that I've lost.”

“How many?”

“Six,” he replied curtly. It was a touchy subject for any bounty hunter. “And that's still too many.”

“Is that why you aren't a big name in the galaxy like Fett?”

He tapped a code into the nav computer, then pulled back a lever and sent the ship hurtling back into hyperspace. “Partially. It's partially because Fett's been around since the Clone Wars, and I've only made my way into the galactic picture in the last ten years or so. Still, being _almost_ the best isn't all bad.”

“You're an honorable loser,” Jay said with a smirk.

“Rame says it's one of my most redeeming qualities. It's also the same quality that keeps me stuck in second place.”

“How so?”

“I'm not as ambitious as other bounty hunters. Some have gone as far as saying I'm lazy. But I personally enjoy distancing myself from the big-time hunters. I'm not a household boogieman like Fett, but I'm known well enough that I make a decent living.”

“Well when you put it like that, I guess second-best isn't that bad,” she admitted. “And if Fett ever gets taken out, you'll be number one.”

He laughed. “Still wrong, unfortunately. I may be good, but I'm a long way from being the best.”

“I thought you said-”

“I said I'm _one_ of the best. In this business, there are a lot of runners-up. It doesn't take much to be _almost_ as good as Fett and a lot of hunters can make that claim right along with me. But we're still not quite good enough to be the all-time number one. As of right now, Fett has that honor.”

“But… don’t you _want_ to be the best?”

He snorted. “No. Why would I want every up-and-coming idiot with a blaster trying to gun me down just for the glory of it? Being the best in the business also puts a target on your back, Jay. Fett can afford to walk around with that target. He’s dangerous and he has the reputation to dissuade most contenders.”

He shrugged. “I just want to be left alone to do my job. I’m not doing this for the glory of it and I have no aspirations to become the Big Number One. The work I do puts food on the table and keeps the bad guys behind bars. I happen to be pretty damn good at that work, and that’s good enough for me.”

“I can see your point,” she said slowly. “I guess. But what about… I don’t know, the fame? You could charge more if you were better known.”

“This isn’t the kind of business where you long for fame and fortune, Jay. The hunters who’ve made names for themselves usually don’t last very long with that kind of attention on them. I’ve managed to survive seven years of this trade by keeping my head down — relatively speaking — and doing a good job. I have no aspirations to climb any higher than that.”

“So… it really is just a job to you?”

“I prefer to see it more as a calling. I was raised to do this from a young age. In a way, it’s all I really know how to do, and I want to keep doing it as long as I can for that reason.” He shrugged. “I’ve come to believe that longevity and fame are mutually exclusive goals. So I chose the former.”

He leaned back in his seat and carefully put his feet up on the command console. “You’ll probably come to a similar conclusion once you have a few hunts under your belt and can see how difficult fame really makes things.”

She bit her lip. “I guess so.”

The conversation tapered off into an awkward silence, until Vhetin settled himself more securely into his seat and said, “You can go ahead and get some rest, Jay. I’ll  take over up here.”

“You sure?”

He nodded. “We won't arrive for another hour or so. I'll call you when we're there. Or if we get another message from our mysterious competitor.”

“All right.” Jay nodded, thanked him, and left the cockpit. The door slid shut with a hiss behind her, and Vhetin turned his gaze back to the strange, warped tunnel of hyperspace.

His partner was definitely a perceptive one. It was true that their competitor wasn’t Fett, but with a score this big, it wouldn’t take much for him to catch word of it. And while there was no guarantee he would take the contract, there was a whole score of other nasty characters who would jump at the opportunity.

Mandalorians made up less than ten percent of the galaxy-wide hunting population. That meant that less than ten percent of hunters shared a code of honor prohibiting them from hurting or killing their fellows. Most hunters would be more than happy to gun one of their compatriots down for a chance at a bounty like this. And when the stakes got that high, simple bounty hunting missions quickly became battlegrounds.

He sighed and set his HUD to wake him in an hour, well before their arrival time. He settled back further in his seat, removing his helmet and settling his hands behind his head. He let out a long breath and closed his eyes, letting the sounds of the ship's engines soothe his mind and carry him into the realm of dark, dreamless sleep.

~~~~~~~~

Jay heard the door hiss shut behind her and quickly made her way towards the crew's quarters that served as her cabin, still mulling over her conversation with Vhetin.

The Mandalorian’s nonchalance genuinely came as a surprise. She saw her friend as a lot of things: a cunning warrior, a brilliant bounty hunter, as well as a bit of a role model (though she would never admit it).

But laid-back, lazy, and lacking ambition? Not a chance.

In her experience, Vhetin was an individual with a narrow focus, always keeping his mind on the tasks at hand. And once he set his mind to something there was no stopping him. Once during combat practice, he hadn't even noticed Rame calling his name. His mind had been so focused on their duel that nothing else could penetrate his concentration. And he went about his job in the same manner, pouring every ounce of his waking time into the hunt. That didn’t seem like the actions of a layabout with no concern for his reputation or his future.

But then again, she'd known him for only a few months now. How could she expect to understand him when she barely knew the first thing about him? He was still a mystery to her, a mystery she didn't think she would ever even understand, let alone solve.

 _Even after all this time_ , she realized, _I still don_ _’t really know anything about the man lurking behind that helmet. He’s as much a stranger now as when I first met him on Corulag._

She sighed and resigned herself to the knowledge that he probably would remain a stranger for as long as she knew him. She was familiar with his type, after all. He didn’t like to part with personal information under any circumstances and made it a point of personal pride to keep everyone at arms’ length. One of her fellow navy pilots, a surly man named Oppan, had been the same way and she had never managed to crack the man’s shell even after years of flying together.

Vhetin, she was beginning to realize, hid his true self even deeper. He was a mystery now and would remain so for as long as he saw fit.

But then, as she keyed open the door to the crew's quarters, an idea flitted into her mind. A very intriguing idea. A very _dangerous_ idea.

She quickly shook it away and chided herself for even thinking about it. But then she stopped. And she thought about it some more. Her stomach churned, uncomfortable even allowing her mind to wander to such places. But the more she thought about it, the more the idea became lodged in her mind.

She glanced over her shoulder. Then she rubbed her chin. Then she turned away and headed back up the hall, stepping lightly, almost sneaking.

 _Void_ 's door control consoles weren't code-locked. Once you deciphered the pattern of the strange Mandalorian runes that adorned the keypads, they weren't hard to understand. Vhetin had once told her that internal security measures were instead linked to his helmet, where he could remotely lock down every door in the ship in case of an intruder. The knowledge made Jay very nervous, because that's exactly what _she_ was about to be.

Every instinct in her body screamed at her to stop and head back to her room, but her curiosity had always been stronger than her sense of reason. And besides, Vhetin wasn't exactly the chattiest being in the galaxy. How else was she going to find out more about him?

 _It_ _’s not spying_ , she thought, butterflies racing through her stomach. _It_ _’s… intelligence-gathering. That’s what he’d call it. Right?_

She paused at the first door down from the cockpit and bit her lower lip nervously, her finger hovering over the opening key. Guilt still crawled through her, but she knew she would never forgive herself if she passed up an opportunity to know more about her mysterious black-clad compatriot.

 _All right_ , she thought to herself. _I have now completely lost my mind. Sneaking into Vhetin's quarters is the worst idea in a very long history of bad ideas. If I'm caught, it will destroy every ounce of trust that's formed between us._

But how could they ever be partners if Vhetin didn't trust _her_? He hadn’t told her _anything_ about himself, yet he expected her to place her life in his hands? This wasn’t spying. If anything, it was simply leveling the playing field.

She still grimaced and bounced nervously on the balls of her feet. She didn't want to invade Vhetin's privacy, but her curiosity would never let her rest until she knew. Mysteries had always irritated her, even from a young age. And mysterious _people_ were just agonizing!

She acted before self-doubt could bring her to hesitate more and keyed open the door to the captain's quarters, Vhetin's personal room. The door slid open with a metallic scrape and the dark room within seemed to beckon her inside. She glanced up and down the hall once more, then quickly slipped through and let the door seal shut behind her.

The closing door threw the room into darkness. She didn't risk switching on the power, as it would probably register on the energy readout panel in the cockpit. Instead, she pulled a tiny glowrod from her belt and clicked it on. The rod shed sickly greenish light across the room, spilling it over the area in a wide arc of illumination. It was eerie, but she could at least see now.

The room she saw within was much like she remembered from when she'd spied on Vhetin and Rame that first day aboard. A single neatly-made cot was anchored into the bulkhead to her left, near a durasteel desk that was secured to the wall. A small piece of twisted, burned shrapnel was resting on top of the cot. Jay passed by it without giving it much more than a cursory glance. It was probably just trash anyway.

The desk was covered in flimsiplast documents, glowing a dull green in the dim light of her glowrod. She approached the desk and picked one of the sheets up, squinting as she fought to make out the letters:

_Bounty: Open_

_Name: Karman Talenak_

_Species: Nikto_

_Sex: Male_

_Last known location: Ubiqi Province, Ord Mantell_

_Bounty Originator: Fai'talen Association_

_Appearance: Typical Nikto with several cranial horns severed and a single missing eye. Usually wears black nerf-hide clothing, which should make him stand out in a crowd. Subject is to be considered armed and dangerous at all times._

_Brief: Subject jumped on his weekly bail payment and has since attacked several bondsmen sent to collect the debt. Law enforcement officers dispatched to the scene have met similar fates._

_If not for us, he'd still be rotting in jail. Bring him back so we can send him back to prison and get our credits back._

_Reward (Imperial standard credits): 9,000 (alive) – 5,000 (dead)_

_Designation: Class 5 bounty. Caution advised._

She set down the flimsi and picked up another, seeing another bounty information column. She set that one down as well and rooted around the desk a little more. There was a small holo of Brianna, a repair kit for a Mandalorian rocket pack, and a software upgrade component that Jay assumed was for his helmet's HUD. A few tiny rounds of projectile ammunition rolled around as she continued her perusal, and she almost knocked over a plastoid water thermos.

All typical tools of the trade for a bounty hunter as far as she could see. There was nothing that offered a hint of his true identity. She was careful to replace everything exactly as she'd found it; Vhetin was very observant, and would probably notice if anything was out of place.

 _You're nothing but a sneak_ , her conscience whispered. _He shouldn't trust you at all. What in the hell are you_ thinking _?_

She grimaced again and shoved such thoughts away. She didn't enjoy prying into her friend's personal belongings, but she _had_ to know more about him. It was only fair, after all they’d been through together.

Before she could lose her nerve, she moved to the closet on the other side of the cot and pulled open the door. The space within contained three large gray lockers that stretched almost from floor to ceiling, almost like the uniform lockers Jay had used during her navy days. Each container had a transparisteel cover that revealed its contents: two contained sets of black-gray armor identical to the set Vhetin was currently wearing. The third was empty.

It was mildly disturbing to see the armor suits hung up like this. All she'd ever really known of her partner was his armor. He'd poured himself into his gear until his identity and his suit were almost one and the same. Now it was almost as if these lockers contained motionless replicas of Vhetin himself.

Maybe that was why she couldn't find anything about his identity. Jay frowned at the thought, hands still resting on the closet doors. Maybe it was because he _had_ no identity outside the business of bounty hunting? It was a disturbing possibility.

Unlike the doors outside, these lockers were code-locked and code-locked well. Jay couldn't even begin to try and decipher the strange letters on the keypads and she doubted anyone else would be able to either. It didn't come as a surprise; Vhetin obviously found his armor very important. She didn't fancy finding out what happened should one get the code wrong, so she didn't risk touching the glowing control monitors.

She closed the closet doors and backed up, surveying the room once again. The walls revealed nothing overly special. A built-in holo monitor, the screen dimmed to conserve power, currently showed a stylized helmet symbol, rotating slowly. Jay paused and studied it closer, remembering seeing the same symbol in miniature form in the corner of Vhetin's right chestplate. It was a foreshortened helmet insignia, coming to a sharp point along the bottom and split down the center. She didn't have the slightest clue what the symbol was or what it meant, but it seemed to have some importance to Vhetin. It was interesting, but not exactly enlightening.

She moved to a shelf along one wall and studied its contents. There were a few boxes of ammunition, repair kits, and some old military-grade ration packs. The only thing of particular note on the shelf was a small brown book, well-worn and obviously used often at one point. Now, though, it was covered in dust and the cover was falling off.

She paused. Not many people used books these days. Flimisplast reports or datapads had long since rendered the printed word obsolete. So what was this?

She pulled the book down, feeling the rough leather binding under fingers that trembled from adrenaline. She glanced over her shoulder one last time, then opened the book and began leafing through the pages.

It appeared to be an old-fashioned handwritten journal, the likes of which had gone out of style almost a thousand years ago. She opened to a random page and read the date. It was from about seven years ago.

Vhetin would have been around thirteen at the time, she realized with a bit of surprise. Somehow, applying an age to the faceless mercenary seemed impossible. She'd asked him about it once and he'd said that he was about her age, offering no further explanation on the subject. Part of her didn’t believe him and the rest hadn’t been able to wrap her head around it. Imagining him as such a young boy was even harder.

She shook her head, told herself to stay focused, and began reading the entry. The handwriting was sloppy and slanted, like he was unfamiliar with writing. Several words were misspelled, then crossed out and written again. The writing was… strange. Unfocused. Like the writing of a young child.

_Rame put had me work in the ~~feelds~~ fields today. I like it. I like that he's helping me get out of the house. Helping me start working and stop living in the house. I don_ _’t want to be a burden anymore. I don’t want to be a leech any more._

_I didn't like the ~~masheens~~ machines he used. They were too loud. Too big. But they were faster than working with a ~~spayde~~ spade, so I used them anyway. I don't know why, but I don_ _’t like machines. All that metal..._

_Rame says that it isn't surprising after what I went through. I asked what he meant. He won't tell me. He says he'll tell me later. When I'm older. When I_ _’m ready. I guess there's nothing to do but wait._

_My_ Mando'a _lessons are going well. The language is tough to understand. Mia told me that most people pick up ~~popoolar~~ popular terms first like greetings and curses before learning the rest. I didn_ _’t say a word right the other day. I accidentally called Mia a bad word. Mia said it was an_ _ ~~impoovment~~_ _improvement. Brianna was laughing too hard to say anything._

_Brianna... Brianna is confusing. I like her. I think she likes me. But... I don't know. I think she wants to tell me something. Something about what happened to me. But every time I try and ask about it, everyone gets ~~nervoss~~ nervous. Was it something bad? Was it something I did?_

_I hope I'll find out soon. But don_ _’t know if I'll like it when I do._

Jay frowned thoughtfully and flipped forward a few more pages. The next eye-catching entry was dated a little over a year later. Unlike the previous entry, the writing was much neater. There were no crossed out words and the writing was concise and focused.

_I've finally decided on my armor's color scheme: I'm going with black. Black symbolizes justice in Mandalorian culture. Devotion to doing the right thing no matter what. I like that. I like it a lot._

_Maybe it's because what happened to me was so_ un _just. A freak accident, they say. A one-in-a-million chance. But then again, I don't know that. Maybe I_ did _deserve it. Hell, maybe I caused it. There's still so much I don't know, it threatens to smother out the few facts that I do know._

_I'm still not sure about my secondary armor color. I thought blue would work, but I_ _’m not completely sold. Maybe I’ll go with gray. It’ll blend well with the black._

_Now that I'm officially a full-fledged warrior, I can finally move away from the farm and head up to the bastion in the mountains. Rame keeps teasing me, saying that I'm just trying to get away from him and Mia. That_ _’s not true. Not really. It's really just because I don't want to be a burden any longer._

_Brianna says she's still considering my offer for her to come and live with me, but I think she's going to say no. I think she could see how uncomfortable I was when I asked. How nervous I was. Maybe I didn_ _’t really want her to say yes._

_I don't really know how to deal with our relationship. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to do the right things. I can_ _’t say the right things. And the harder I try, the less successful I am. I have… feelings for her. But it’s not what she wants. She wants more. More than I can give her right now, I think. I’m still figuring this all out, trying to figure out how I feel about all of this._

_Maybe it will get better with time. But for now, I think it's best if Brianna and I just give each other some space. It_ _’ll probably be better if she decides not to come live in the bastion with me. Better for both of us._

_Of course Jaing's been spewing stupid jokes almost as fast as his mouth can move. I don't think he knows he's just making things worse, but I think I'm going to have to shoot him before this is done._

_Later note: He knows. He_ _’s been warned._

Jay flipped further into the book, feeling worse and worse for prying into her partner's personal life. It was wrong, invading his privacy like this. Particularly when the information she was finding was so sensitive.

 _But_ , she thought again, _I have to know. And there's no other way to get it done._

The next entry was dated about three years before he had rescued her from prison. As she read, she was surprised by the sudden shift in tone. Before, her partner’s writings had been open and detailed, garbled and confused at parts. Now the writing was sharp, concise, and all business. All mention of emotions or feelings was gone, replaced by a more curt tone focused on the specifics of his profession.

_I_ _’m going to put down a rebellion on Eminor today. Scorched earth procedures. No one is supposed to be left standing._

_When I received the orders I was surprised. But only at first. Eminor, a mid-rim world that specializes in exotic herbal extracts used in medicinal fields, had been growing more and more despotic and disorderly for years. There wasn't much else that could have happened. Rebellion was inevitable._

_Seven months ago, a small force of Eminorians rose up against the planetary government, infiltrating the capital and managing to smuggle out several shipments of military-grade weapons. This group, under the name of the Alliance of Eminor, was engaging in guerilla warfare on the planet's surface._

_Two weeks ago, a platoon of stormtroopers was mobilized and sent to the planet's surface to-_

_Stormtroopers?_ Jay thought as she looked up from the journal. _What's Vhetin doing working for a company that employs stormtroopers?_

She shrugged and continued reading. Maybe he'd explain.

_Two weeks ago, a platoon of stormtroopers was mobilized and sent to the planet's surface to quell this upstart rebellion. Contact with them was lost soon after they landed. It seems the rebel Eminorians had adapted to life in the jungle, and the stormtroopers weren't prepared for whatever they found down there._

_A scouting team from the capital found the troopers dead a few weeks later, victims of special poisondarts the rebels were fond of using. The scouting team soon after came under attack, and managed to retreat to the capital while sustaining heavy casualties. Things were spiraling out of control._

_So, naturally, they turned to me._

_Right now, I'm en route to Eminor, and I'm not sure what kind of reception I'll receive when I get there. I do know that it doesn't matter how the locals treat me. My first priority is to get the job done. Lord Vader will not accept failure._

Jay almost dropped the journal in shock. She stopped and reread the sentence three more times before she was satisfied her eyes weren't playing tricks on her.

_Lord Vader will not accept failure._

_Lord Vader_.

Vhetin used to work for Darth Vader? And only a few years before he'd rescued her?

Her heart felt like a cold rock in her stomach, sinking into her gut with a leaden slowness that made her want to suddenly vomit. In the span of a moment her sense of security aboard _Void_ was shattered. She didn't feel safe here any more, and suddenly wanted nothing more than to take the next escape pod and put as much distance between herself and Vhetin as possible.

What if he still had ties to the Empire? What if he was still working for the people who had branded her a traitor and ruined her life? Had he secretly been an Imperial all along? Was he in league with Vader, even after all this time?

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

 _Slow down_ , she thought. _Get a hold of yourself, girl. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for this. Vhetin destroyed an entire Imperial prison and kidnapped an Imperial general the very first day you met him. There's_ no way _he's still working for the Empire._

The thought comforted her. He may have had previous ties to Imperial forces, but those were very clearly in the past. He wasn’t an Imperial any more, she was sure of it. But Imperial or not, he had a lot of explaining to do.

She returned the book to its place on the shelf, then hurried out of the room and made sure to seal the door behind her. Only when she was safely enclosed back in her own room did she finally let her guard down. She settled herself down on her cot and cradled her head in her hands.

He had explaining to do, yes. But before his explanation even began, _she_ had a lot of explaining to do first.

~~~~~~~~

**Kash's hideout, Imperial City**

Kassh sat bolt-upright in his seat and cried, “What?!”

Durge fixed him with a blank stare. He folded his massive arms across his chest, expecting Kassh to explain himself. The Twi’lek rubbed his eyes and stood, pacing back and forth as he pondered over this new information. It didn’t help. It was still just as unbelievable as ever. “Vhetin went to _Sekha_?”

“That is what my sources tell me,” Durge rumbled. “His ship was docked at Bloody Dawn headquarters for more than an hour. Why is that a problem?”

Kassh stared at his clenched fists and saw that they were trembling. “I-I _trusted_ her!”

“How much does she know of our organization?” the Gen'dai growled, sounding like he already knew the answer.

“ _Everything_!” Kassh shook his head, head-tendrils flapping wildly. “She was the one who sold us this very _base_!”

This was one contingency he had _not_ prepared for. Sekha... betray him? It didn't seem possible. She had helped him every step of the way as he'd built up the Midnight Ultraviolet syndicate. She had provided men, materiel, credits, weapons…

But he'd betrayed her first, he knew, when he'd moved in on her territories. When he’d begun bribing her men and forcefully seizing her businesses. Sekha was cunning and merciless, and Kassh should have known she would not tolerate active competition. She was predictable that way. Still, he thought their history would curb some of her wrath and spare him from such drastic reprisal. Without her…

He rubbed his aching temples. “Did she _tell_ him anything?”

Durge paused for a moment, probably reviewing his earlier conversation with his contact. After a time, he thundered, “Uncertain. Uitani was only their guide to Sekha's sanctum. He was ordered to leave as soon as he brought them to her. He viewed them leaving through the guard post later, but was unable to tell where they were headed next. My other contacts state that _Void_ left dock at the local spaceport almost two days ago and immediately departed from the system. I do not know their final destination.”

Kassh took a deep breath. “That is,,, good news. If Sekha had given away my position, he'd already be on my doorstep. If he hasn’t tracked me down by now, she must have refused him help.”

“Unless he is using a mode of transport other than his ship.”

Kassh shot him a glare, but considered the possibility. As a bounty hunter himself, Durge's mind worked in much the same way as Vhetin's. It was one of the reasons Kassh continued to employ him.

“How does this change your plans?” Durge grunted. “You said he would find us in time, and it seems he has. He is drawing closer with each passing day.”

“Yes...” Kassh said quietly. “Yes.”

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then turned to his enforcer. “Durge,” he said. “I want you to stay here and wait for Vhetin to find you. When he appears, kill him as slowly and painfully as you know how.”

“It will be my pleasure.” The Gen'dai bowed. “And where will you be?”

“Sekha's treachery has forced me to change my plans. I will travel to my base on Tatooine. Without Bloody Dawn as an ally, our operations on Coruscant are compromised and under direct threat from her organization. Send the order: all Midnight Ultraviolet operatives are to evacuate and regroup on at our bases on Tatooine. We are leaving Imperial City.”

He turned away and left the room. Before he left, he made sure to call over his shoulder in parting. “Make sure Vhetin does not leave this base alive, Durge. Or I'll make your life so painful, you'll beg me to fly you into another sun.”

~~~~~~~~

With a deep rumble of engine wash _Void_ settled down onto a floating landing pad, suspended by repulsor engines several thousand feet above the ground. Skyscrapers stretched thousands more feet above the platform, and ships and speeders of every make and model darted through the congested skylanes.

Coruscant. Political center of the universe, home to billions of beings, spatial coordinates 0-0-0.

That was what the nav computer said as Vhetin keyed through the info page. A small smile played across his lips as he thought, _What they leave out is all the_ important _information. Like the fact that Triple Zero's also home to Bloody Dawn headquarters, Black Sun supply depots, a whole host of spice cartels, as well as Midnight Ultraviolet's base of operations. They don_ _’t mention the fact that drug lords and mutants rule the underworld and that there are parts of the city so deep the Empire doesn’t even know they exist._

He looked out the front viewport and narrowed his eyes at the sprawling cityscape that stretched across the horizon.

 _Kassh is out there somewhere_ , he thought. _As well as the woman who sent us that message. They both think that I'm not enough of a threat to deal with... and I'm going to show them just how wrong they are._

The door to the cockpit hissed open and Jay stuck her head through.

“Hey,” she said. “Tal Wam's almost ready to jump ship.”

“All right,” he said, standing from his seat. “I'll be right there.”

He took one last look out the viewport and thought, _This may very well be the biggest hunt of my career. And I don't even know half of what the hell is going on._

He sighed, then followed Jay out onto the landing pad. Tal Wam was staring around with his large red eyes, clutching at the collapsible stun prod that he had refused to set down since Rhen Var. He looked afraid and out of place, but Vhetin was beginning to think that was just his usual expression.

Jay was already talking to the spindly-looking Duros. “Are you sure you'll be all right on your own?”

“Yep yep.” He nodded quickly. “I know way around Coruscant. Know my way around-”

She held up a hand with a small smile. “That's all right. I know what you're trying to say.”

Vhetin stepped forward, folding his arms across his chest. Tal Wam stared at him and held out his stun prod with a trembling hand.

“You... you want weapon back? Back weapon want?”

“Keep it. It's brought you more luck than it ever brought me.”

He hesitated, then reluctantly put a hand on Wam's shoulder. “Thanks for your help. We… couldn't have made it away from Rhen Var without you.”

It was a lie, of course. But for some reason he wanted to part on good terms with the eccentric young alien.

“My-my was a _prisoner_ half the time!” Tal Wam cried. “Prisoner I was a half time!”

“Is it just me,” Jay murmured, almost too quiet to hear, “or did his speech problem just get worse over time?”

“T-thank you,” Tal Wam went on. “You thank. Life is become very interesting since meeting you. Interesting life become meeting very-”

“Why don't you just get on that speeder bus,” Vhetin said, nodding toward the vehicle parked on the other end of the landing pad, “and see how much more interesting life gets?”

The Duros nodded slowly. “Yep yep. Yep yep.”

He scurried toward the speeder bus, muttering to himself the whole way. As the bus rumbled into the air and began its flight away, Jay shook her head. “That was without doubt the weirdest Duros I've ever met.”

“You just wait. You're going to meet some even weirder people before your career is over. That’s a promise.”

As they headed back for the ship, Jay asked, “Was that true? About how we wouldn't have made it through Rhen Var without him?”

“In a manner. Everyone pulls their own weight in a bad situation,” he replied, carefully measuring his words, “whether they know it or not. Tal Wam guarded the prisoners and helped me when I had hypothermia, not to mention provided us with a way to Pollamo and Kokr. He may have been annoying as hell, but he was helpful. Marginally.”

“But… we _could_ have done it without him.”

“Of course. But even bounty hunters need a helping hand now and again.”

Jay watched the speeder soar off into the sky. She rested her hands on her hips as the bus entered the skylanes and disappeared from sight. “I hope he stays safe.”

“His fate is out of our hands. We need to stay focused on our own objective.”

“And you still think Sekha's going to part with her information?”

“Only one way to find out,” Vhetin said, striding up the entrance ramp into his ship. “Let’s go claim our reward.”

~~~~~~~~

**Bloody Dawn Headquarters**

“ _Marvelous!_ _”_ Sekha cried in delight. She clapped her hands together, circling the two bounties like a gurr-cat stalking its prey. Her eyes sparkled with a malevolent light as she took in the two, kneeling on the floor in front of her with their arms cuffed behind their backs. “Just _marvelous_!”

She stepped up to Vhetin and threw her arms around him. “Oh, I've been waiting _ages_ for someone to come along and bring these two traitors to justice! You really are the best bounty hunter in the galaxy!”

Vhetin let her hug him, then respectfully pushed her away. “Keep your flattery for someone who'll fall for it, Sekha. I'd prefer the cash and the information you promised us.”

“Of course, of course,” she gushed, still staring at Pollamo and Kokr with gleaming eyes. “Uitani's replacement will deal with the money transaction.”

The Twi'lek swaggered up to Kokr and brushed a long finger down the side of his craggy, dirty face. The human scowled and pulled his face away, spitting at Sekha's feet. Instantly, the happy look in her eyes died, replaced with an ice-cold glare that made Kokr’s face go pale.

“And to think,” she whispered, shaking her head, “that my own majordomo Uitani was selling the secrets of my organization... I am truly shocked. But he is no longer a problem. And now, neither are you.”

Pollamo was shivering so hard it made his proboscis flap back and forth. “W-what are you going to do?”

“With you two?’ Sekha’s lips curled into a wicked grin and she quirked his eyebrows up suggestively. “Oh, let's not talk about that right now. Business before pleasure, and all that.”

Something told Jay that the next few hours were going to be a lot more pleasurable for Sekha than for the two criminals kneeling at her feet. The thought of their fate churned her stomach, and the large red-carpeted room suddenly felt as if it were already spattered with blood.

But she wisely kept her mouth shut, waiting for Vhetin to authorize the credit transaction. Months ago, he and Jaing Skirata had hacked into the galactic banking network and worked up a hidden credit account for her. No one but Jay knew the special code to access it, and only she, Vhetin, and Jaing even knew of its existence. If everything went according to plan, half of the money for the bounty would go to Vhetin, half would go to her.

She wouldn’t lie and say she wasn’t anticipating the credit surge. It would be nice to have more than single digits in savings. She wouldn’t need to rely on the charity of others once she returned to Mandalore. She could finally begin caring for herself rather than being the helpless rookie in town.

Vhetin nodded to the Sekha's new head majordomo – what had happened to the traitor Uitani, Jay couldn't even begin to guess – and typed in his credit account's primary transaction number. He tapped in a few more commands to hide the transaction's path, then handed the datapad to Jay.

Jay tapped in the ten-digit transaction code for her account, then watched as the credit balance climbed from almost zero to a little over three and a half thousand credits. A warm feeling of satisfaction washed over her. She had done her part, had gotten paid, and now her part in this little escapade was done. There was a nice sense of closure in that.

“The money was only half the deal,” Vhetin was saying, his hands on his hips. “You still haven't fulfilled your half of the bargain.”

Sekha reluctantly nodded and motioned for her servants to take Pollamo and Kokr away.

“No!” Kokr roared as he was dragged out of the room. He struggled against servants who were pulling away, but was ultimately unsuccessful. He was bound at the wrists and ankles with stun cuffs, after all. “No, damn it! I'll get you for this, Vhetin! I _promise you_! _I'll make you pay_!”

Vhetin responded by throwing the bearded human a lazy salute.

As soon as the bounties were tugged out of sight, Sekha settled back against her couch and sighed. “All right then. It's time for me to keep my end of the deal, I suppose.”

 _It_ _’s about damn time_ , Jay thought.

The countess, meanwhile, frowned and waved a delicately-tattooed hand at the hunter standing before her. “I’ll tell you what I know. But don’t look so cranky for Force’s sake. You’re so very attractive when you’re left at a smolder.”

Vhetin, surely against his better judgment, snorted in amusement. “All right, consider me smoldering. Now talk. I want to know everything you have on Kassh.”

“Not that I'm an _expert_ on the subject,” the crime lord said slowly, “but Kassh is holed up in an old oxygen-pumping station exactly twenty-point-three-eight kilometers southeast of the atmospheric enhancement sector of the Underworld. The facility has twin anti-personnel security turrets, kath hound pens that can be opened at the push of a button, floodlight towers, and automated perimeter defenses designed by Aratech Security Systems. You shouldn't find them too hard to get past.”

“What about manpower?” Vhetin asked, tipping his head slightly to one side.

“Again, not that I'd really know _anything_ about this, but he has fifteen hired thugs at the base and another ten on patrols that go out every ten minutes. Shift changes are every six hours, and that's usually when the defenses are powered down so everyone off-duty can go home. Apart from that he has his maniac brother, Killk, a couple ex-special forces thugs as bodyguards, and a huge Gen'dai enforcer that follows him around everywhere he goes. Bigger muscles than even you, Cin.”

She flashed them a dazzling — and no doubt insincere — smile and batted her eyelashes at Vhetin.

 _Gen'dai_? The name rang a very distant bell, though Jay couldn’t quite put her finger on where she’d heard it before. Whatever it was, it didn't sound like good news. The way Vhetin stiffened at the revelation only made that all the clearer.

But her partner didn’t show any other signs of surprise. He seemed to ponder over the information for a time before he spoke again. “And you have all this on good authority?”

Sekha shrugged, tossing her lekku back over the arm of the luxurious couch. “If I can trust my own spies. But then again, after dealing with the Bearded Wonder back there I’m forced to question whether I _can_ do that anymore.”

She wriggled her hips slightly, shifting to a more comfortable position, and shot him a smug smirk. Vhetin looked hesitant to accept the information at face value – particularly considering just who was giving them the information – but he knew as well as Jay did that they had no other choice. Sekha was far from far from trustworthy, but she was the best lead they had.

“If your spies are wrong,” he eventually said, “you can expect me to be back here very soon. And I won't be as friendly as I’ve been in the past.”

Sekha grinned and playfully traced her fingers along the bared skin of one thigh. “I look forward to it. Righteous indignation becomes you, Cin.”

“I think we've spent enough time here. _Ret_ _’urcye mhi_ , Sekha.”

Sekha waved to them as they left, a knowing smile on her beautiful face. “Good-bye,” she called to them as they left. “The Cooperative’s doors are always open to you. Stop in again soon, will you?”

 _Yeah_ , Jay thought. _The moment Mustafar freezes over, I_ _’m sure we’ll come calling._

Then the huge reinforced door slammed shut once more, and the crime lord was cut off from them. Several loud, clanking booms suggested that several high-powered locks had slid into place. Sekha was obviously taking her security far more seriously while her molehunt was ongoing. The Twi’lek guards quickly took command once more and herded them away from the crime lord’s inner sanctum.

“So...” Jay said as they headed back toward the landing pad. “What’s the plan now?”

“What else?” Vhetin replied. “We're going to follow up on the information we have. Sekha's spies gave her detailed intel about Kassh's hidden base. It’s the best and the freshest trail we’ve got.”

“Yeah, but it also sounds like there are pretty formidable defenses. Patrols, turrets, kriffing _kath hounds_. I hope you have a plan.”

“Not as of yet,” he admitted. “With everything that’s happened, I'm kind of flying by the seat of my kama at the moment. But that will change as soon as we recon the area and confirm that we have solid intel backing us up. You’ll see.”

They passed back into Bloody Dawn’s massive atrium, where they retrieved their weapons and headed for the exit. As they passed by the huge interior park, Jay watched the fountains spray shimmering showers of water into the air. It was a beautiful sight, but knowing that the entire complex belonged to a dangerous criminal cartel spoiled the splendor of it all. She shook her head and moved on. “Maybe Tarron will be able to tell us more.”

“That's what I'm hoping. His talent for ferreting out intel has been the saving grace of more than one hunt. Besides, we still have our mysterious competitor to worry about.”

“Do you think our Journeyman Protector found anything on her?”

Vhetin chuckled as they left the indoor park behind. _Void_ lay ahead, waiting on the landing pad outside. “Are you kidding? My guess is he's got the woman's name, military service record, pilot’s license, the address of her summer home, and the name of her pet gizka.”

“Really?” Jay said slowly, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “If that’s the case, then let's go see what he's found.”

As they walked, she leaned closer and added, “But ten credits says he hasn't been able to find anything.”

“Twenty says otherwise,” he replied without missing a beat.


	3. Durge

“ _Well_ ,” Tarron said slowly, his voice crackling over the speakers of the comm system, “ _I_ _’m afraid I don't have much to tell you._ ”

“Ha!” Jay victoriously clapped her hands. She held out a beckoning and to her partner. “I win. Hand over the spoils, big guy.”

“ _And the little info I did manage to scrounge up,_ ” Tarron continued, “ _you aren't going to like._ ”

“Oh kark it all,” she muttered, her face falling.

“Spit it out, then,” Vhetin said, sliding into his seat. “We're on a tight schedule.”

They were sitting at the duraplast table in _Void_ 's small mess hall. Tarron had answered the comm after a single hailing tone; proof of how alert he was. Vhetin admired the man's devotion. If his intel was useful, it would be a perfect day.

“ _Okay_ ,” Tarron said through the comm static. “ _Transmitting the data now_.”

The comm hummed, signaling a long-distance data download. Jay leaned forward in her seat, unconsciously drumming her fingers against the tabletop in anticipation.

“ _I fed the recording you sent me through a couple vocal analysis programs yesterday. It took forever to get a positive match, but once the results were fed through Imperial databases_ _…_ ”

“You found something?”

“ _Take a look for yourself._ ”

With an electronic sizzle, a shimmering blue-white hologram sputtered to life from the transmitter. It displayed the rotating image of a woman dressed in simple black combat armor, the likes of which Vhetin had never seen. Accompanying the holo were documents that looked like Republic-era identification records. Whoever this woman was, she'd obviously been around for a while — and had run afoul of the former galactic government more than once during her career.

The woman was tall and lean, with her hair shaved so close to her head that nothing but stubble remained. She seemed to be in her early or mid-thirties, though different humanoids aged at different speeds. Vhetin didn't see anything overly threatening about her, but he knew from experience never to underestimate potential opponents. She had already proved herself to be resourceful and knowledgeable about her competition.

“Who’re we looking at here, Tarron?” he inquired, leaning forward and folding his hands on the tabletop.

“ _This is the Republic ID record for one Kalyn Farnmir. Human female, age thirty-three._ ”

“Criminal record?”

“ _Apparently she was caught and arrested during an Imperial raid on one of Kassh's bases a few years ago. She used to be a pretty frequent employee of Midnight Ultraviolet's upper echelon. It didn't stop Kassh from selling her out to save his own skin, though._ ”

“So she's obviously no friend of Kassh or his organization,” Jay said, glancing at her partner. “At least not anymore.”

“ _She was released from Imperial custody two months ago on probationary status,_ ” Tarron continued, “ _and she disappeared almost as soon as she cleared the bars of the prison. Since then she_ _’s made quite a name for herself among the Coruscant hunting guilds. There's a warrant out for her capture and arrest; a ten thousand credit reward if you're interested._ ”

“I don't think so,” Vhetin said. “I haven't stooped low enough to start hunting fellow hunters.”

He leaned back in his seat and frowned thoughtfully behind his helmet faceplate, folding his arms across his chest. “Kalyn Farnmir... the name sounds vaguely familiar.”

“ _She apparently used to be a big name towards the beginning of the Clone Wars, but some nasty business ventures set her back a couple steps. All I could dig up was that her partner sold her out, tried to whack her, and failed._ ”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jay said, holding up her hands in confusion. “Did you say at the start of the _Clone Wars_?”

“ _Interesting, huh? Imperial medical reports say that biologically she's thirty-three. But if her recorded birthdate is accurate, she should be in her fifties by now. I'm still trying to figure that one out. My best guess is carbonite freezing._ ”

“What happened during the Clone Wars that made her lose her edge?”

“ _Don't know. The last bounty she brought in was a Gammorean gangbanger a few months after the Battle of Geonosis. After that... nothing. She just disappears from the galactic scene until her business with Kassh._ ”

Jay frowned and shook her head in confusion. “People don't just disappear. She had to be somewhere.”

“ _Ba_ _’slan shev’la_ ,” Vhetin muttered. “Strategic disappearance. Something – or _someone_ – forced her to lay low for almost twenty years.”

He grunted and settled back in his seat, his thoughtful frown hidden behind his helmet face plate. “I can see why she'd want to get to Kassh first. And why she'd go to such great lengths to scare us off this mission. If he really sold her out to the Imperials, it would make for some pretty bad blood between them. It's personal to her, not just a job.”

“Fierfek,” Jay sighed. “And she's just the _beginning_ of our competition. Tarron, how long do you think we have before this Farnmir woman gets to Kassh?”

There was a long pause over the comm. Then he said, “ _There's every possibility she's at Kassh's base right now. She probably thinks you two are out of the game, so she may be moving in for the kill._ ”

Vhetin hissed and pushed away from the table, heading for the cockpit. “Not if I can help it. Thanks, Tarron.”

Jay followed her partner, hastily grabbing the comlink and following close on her partner’s heels. As Vhetin strapped into the pilot's seat, she thanked Tarron for his information as well and signed off the comm. She took her place in the copilot's seat and strapped in for a quick takeoff.

“Okay, so we know who our competition is. What do you think?”

“It’s simple,” Vhetin growled. “We get to Kassh's base before Kalyn Farnmir does. We capture him before she does. And we turn him in before she has a chance to stop us.”

“And if she tries to steal Kassh from us?” Jay asked. “She doesn’t sound like most of the other gun-toting thugs we’ve encountered.”

She already knew the answer, but Vhetin responded anyway. “If that happens, we force her to back down. By any means necessary.”

Jay sighed and settled back in her seat as _Void_ rumbled and took off. “I was worried you'd say that.”

~~~~~~~~

As _Void blasted_ through the atmospheric sector, Vhetin scowled and cracked the knuckles of his left hand by slowly making a tight fist.

So this Kalyn Farnmir woman thought she had scared him off, did she? That wasn't just an underestimation of his resolve... it was downright _insulting_. He was not the kind who would run because of a simple threat against his life.

As _Void_ swooped between two towering oxygen-production towers, he took the ship off self-pilot and manually guided her down towards the coordinates Sekha had given them. He saw a facility far below, shrouded in the shadow and smog of the oxygen towers. It was hard to tell from here, but Kassh's compound looked like nothing more than an old collection of office buildings surrounded by a high chain-link fence.

That was their best bet. And it was exactly twenty-point-three-eight kilometers southeast of the Atmospheric Enhancement Sector's center, just as Sekha had said.

 _I guess her spies are better than I gave them credit for,_ he reluctantly thought. _They're certainly better informed than the last time I worked with her. I guess I owe her a thank-you card or something._

He set the ship down on a landing pad a few hundred meters from the complex, outside the range of the security turrets Sekha had warned them about. He locked the ship's systems so no unwanted passengers could access _Void_ 's database or command console. Tal Wam had wound up helping them in their hunt, but he’d be damned if he let another stowaway sneak aboard his ship.

Jay was waiting in the armory. Stocked within the small storage bay were rifles, pistols, grenades and rocket launchers along one wall. Along the other were vibroswords, his small collection of contraband lightsabers, and an old bow and arrow set that he used from time to time.

Jay was staring at all the weapons with something akin to wonder, deciding which one would be most useful for their current mission. After a moment she just drew her own pistol from the holster on her hip and began restocking on ammunition. She fed a cartridge of tibanna gas into the pistol before noticing Vhetin standing in the doorway. She holstered the weapon and turned to him with a smile. “Howdy, partner. Have we arrived?”

He nodded and entered the room, grabbing his saber-staff from a set of hooks on one wall. “I set the ship down a ways north of Kassh's base. If we run into any advance forces, I want to be ready for a quick getaway.”

“Has Farnmir already been here?”

“I can’t tell.” He hooked his staff against the specially-adapted clips on his rocket pack, then reached for a nearby weapon rack. “But you might want to take this-”

He tossed her a compact, short-stocked DC-17 battle rifle of the same kind favored by Imperial Commandos. She caught it clumsily and looked at him with surprise.

“-just in case,” he finished. He grabbed a rifle of his own and checked the sight calibration, staring down the holographic sights and syncing them up to his HUD systems. “Ammo's in the crate in the corner.”

He snapped back the charging rod with the flat of his palm, hearing a satisfying whine as the tibanna gas within the rifle built up to assist in the creation of a lethal blaster bolt. Jay mirrored the action, a little slower and gawkier. She’d trained with the weapon before, but obviously not enough to be fully comfortable with it.

“Well…” She shouldered the weapon. “I guess we should get this over with.”

He nodded and left the room without another word.

A few minutes later and they were both carefully creeping down _Void_ 's exit ramp into the darkness of the streets surrounding Kassh's base. Vhetin took point, keeping his rifle leveled at the area ahead. He tightened his blaster against his shoulder and a holographic targeting reticule appeared in the center of his HUD. He clicked the safety off and stepped onto the street below, scanning his surroundings for the slightest sign of movement. Besides a single torn sheet of fabric, draped from a nearby window and fluttering in the breeze, there was nothing.

Jay crept down the ramp behind him, her pace slow and cautious. Vhetin couldn't blame her for her caution. A deserted, foreboding street stretched off into the darkness ahead of them. Waste littered every corner and dangling wires threw sparks onto the duracrete below in sporadic showers of light. A mynock screeched somewhere off in the distance, the forlorn cry echoing away into the darkness.

Vhetin squinted to see through the smoky gloom and clicked on the light mounted to the end of his DC-16. If possible the illumination made the area even creepier, casting angular shadows across the walls and ground. He was very aware of the sound of his own heavy bootfalls on the duracrete beneath his feet.

“It's so _quiet_ ,” Jay whispered.

He sighted down his rifle, paying careful attention on putting one boot down in front of the other as carefully and as quietly as possible. Stealth was difficult for a man in full-body Mandalorian armor, but with talent, experience, and attention he could move as quietly as a Kashyyyk night panther.

He shook his head. “That's not right. This close to the atmospheric enhancement sector, the machinery should be deafening us. Something shut down power in this area.”

Jay looked up at the oxygen towards stretching high above their heads. “And… just what could do that?”

He shrugged with a concerned frown. “A meltdown. A maintenance blackout, maybe. Or maybe someone took control of the power station and shut it down manually for some reason.”

She obviously didn’t buy any of those possibilities. Her lips pursed and she muttered, “And the most likely cause?”

“A firefight.” His jaw tightened. “Tibanna gas reacts violently with pure oxygen. If blaster bolts started flying, someone would have had to shut down the machinery or risk carving out a mile-deep crater in the ground.”

His partner visibly grew edgier at the news. She tucked her rifle against her shoulder, finger hovering over the firing stud. “So chances are good that Farnmir’s been here already. Great.”

“Maybe. But besides the quiet, I’m not seeing any signs of a fight.”

He suddenly straightened, leveled his rifle at a nearby wall, and squeezed the trigger. Three quick shots in swift succession. _Pap, pap, pap!_ The staccato snap of the DC rifle shattered the silence and echoed down the alleyway. Jay shouted in surprise and jumped away from the flashing blaster bolts.

The noise — both the blaster shots and her surprised cry — slowly faded back to silence.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?!” Jay hissed furiously, crouching close to a building's wall for cover and glancing around for signs of approaching guards. “Are you _trying_ to get us killed?”

He held up a hand, signaling for her to be quiet. His helmet cocked to one side and tuned up his helmet's audio receptors to maximum power. They picked up the breeze whistling through broken windows, the compound's fence creaking quietly, and the distant chug of machinery. He could even hear the coolant rivers pounding through the massive pipes beneath their feet.

But no sounds of life. No shouts of surprise, no bootsteps rushing their way. Nothing.

He waited for a moment longer, just to be sure. Then he sighed in relief and his rifle lowered. “I think we're alone. If there was anyone here, they would have attacked by now.”

“Please tell me you’re joking,” Jay said. “What about all of Kassh's guards? What about the kath hounds?”

“What about them?” Vhetin replied, gesturing around at their surroundings. “They would have heard the blaster fire. They should be here. So where are they?”

Jay opened her mouth to shoot back a reply, then promptly closed it again. She frowned and looked around, obviously listening intently for incoming noise as he had just done. Then with a weary sigh, she clambered to her feet again and returned to stand next to him. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“I think Farnmir beat us here,” he said as he began walking once more. “Even if she didn’t, _someone_ did.”

A few meters further down the street and they came across a splash of purple-blue blood along one wall. Vhetin stopped and touched it gently, rubbing the slightly sticky substance between his gloved fingers. His HUD's analysis program showed it was Duros blood. But where the Duros was now, he could only guess. There was no sign of the alien or whatever had killed it.

Jay’s lips were pressed into a tight, concerned frown. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Me too.” He shouldered his weapon and set off again. “But we still have a job to do. Don’t let fear get the better of you.”

She scoffed. “That's easier said than done.”

“Let's just see if we can find the entrance to the facility and take things from there. Keep on your toes, okay?”

She cast a last nervous glance at the blood splattered across the wall, then nodded and followed close behind him. His helmet’s readouts easily picked up the quick speed of her heart, her respiration rate, and the way her fingers trembled as she reached up to adjust her ponytail. She was afraid, despite her best attempts to appear calm and collected.

He didn’t blame her. Something about this place felt very wrong, like the entire area had been pulled from a bad horror holovid. Between the silent alleyways, the bloodstained walls, and the silent machinery, it was… _creepy_. There was still no sign of a larger fight, but something had definitely hit Kassh’s compound and hit it hard.

Vhetin had once had the displeasure of traveling through a ghost town on the ancient prison world of Belsavis. Local gangs had passed through not long before he arrived, taking all the locals into captivity and locking them away in the planet-prison’s primordial vaults for the entertainment of the prisoners. Men, women, and children across the town had vanished overnight, as if vaporized where they stood, and the local stormtrooper guard had vanished along with them.

The memory of the town still haunted Vhetin if he lingered on the thought too long. He remembered the way there was still food on the tables, how holomonitors and houselights had been left on. How a single swing on the playground had creaked back and forth in the breeze. Walking through the ghost town, Vhetin had felt a cold sensation in the pit of his gut, as if he could feel the terror and confusion of the townsfolk as they had been snatched away from their homes.

The sensation now was not that different. That sense of newly-passed terror, of having just barely missed a terrible disaster, lay thick and heavy on the air. He felt an unwarranted shiver race up his spine and scowled behind his helmet. _Keep it together, Cin. You need to stay focused._

After a few more minutes of searching, they came upon a meters-high fence with large signs that read in Basic: _Beware! High Voltage!_

Vhetin looked up and down the perimeter fence and saw evidence to the contrary. There were large sections of the barrier that had been crushed by a huge duracrete pillar, severed at its base by what looked like a large-bore turbolaser bolt.

Power was out in this area as well, then. If there had been a charge running through the fence, it would still be sparking even under the weight of the pillar that had crushed it. But all he saw were dull gray chain-link wires twisted around a cracked duracrete column.

Using hand gestures, he signaled for Jay to move up towards the column. She quickly took point in a crouched run, sweeping her blaster over the area as her eyes darted about looking for hostiles. Vhetin followed close behind, watching their rear. She clambered up onto the top of the fallen pillar, wary not to catch her foot in the cracks that had torn the duracrete apart, and dropped to one knee on top of the toppled column. She scanned the area beyond, jaw tight and eyes narrow, then signaled back that all was clear. Only then did he move forward, hopping up onto the top of the pillar in two tall leaps.

As he passed through the fence, Jay right beside him, he activated the video-capture unit mounted along the side of his helmet. He'd want a record of their explorations here for future reference.

The courtyard within the electrified fence was every bit as still and silent as the outside. And just like the outside, there was no obvious signs of a fight. It looked as if the entire complex had simply been deserted. If not for the freshly-fallen pillar, Vhetin would have believed the area had been abandoned years ago.

The silence didn’t last long. There was a crash in the distance and he spun toward the sound with weapon raised. Jay also dropped into a battle-ready stance, preparing for a seemingly inevitable attack. They were back-to-back now, each keeping their full attention on their own side of the pillar. Vhetin's motion tracker showed nothing, his light revealing nothing but more twisted fencing and broken duracrete chips.

“It looks like this pillar was pretty tall,” Jay whispered to him. “It goes on for a while. Must have been a hell of an explosion that knocked it down.”

“Let's follow it,” he replied. “It might take us right to the center of the compound. But keep an eye out for those turrets Sekha mentioned.”

“ _You_ keep an eye out for the turrets,” she shot back. “ _I'm_ keeping an eye out for the damn kath hounds.”

Vhetin snorted, then switched positions and took point. Jay easily pivoted with his motions and moved to watch the rear. They moved with the synchronized grace of warriors who had drilled for hours on end for just this situation, rotating in unison like cogs in a machine. Once their positions had been reversed, they slowly and cautiously crept on.

A few meters ahead of them the pillar broke up into chunks that they had to carefully hop across like stepping stones across a stream. Vhetin almost slipped on the last pillar chunk and his foot dislodged a shower of loose duracrete chips. The chips went skittering across the pad beneath the toppled column.

Jay winced, obviously waiting for blaster bolts to scream toward them at the sound. She crouched lower and braced herself against an inevitable ambush. But none came. After a few seconds she opened one eye, then ever so slowly straightened.

“Uh... okay.” She cleared her throat to stop her voice from shaking. “I'm able to admit when I'm wrong. It looks like no one's home. Someone beat us to it.”

“Looks that way.” Vhetin’s own heart was pounding in his chest. He’d been sure that such a sloppy slip-up would have spelled death for them both. “But don’t let your guard down until we have proof.”

“So what's the plan?”

“We split up,” he said. His motion tracker still wasn’t picking anything up, but he wasn’t willing to relax just yet. “I'll head to the right side of the compound, you take the left. Keep in constant contact and tell me if you find anything. Anything at all.”

She nodded and double-checked her ammo clip, just as he taught her. She slapped her open palm against the magazine and tucked the blaster tight against her shoulder. Her finger hovered over the firing stud, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. “Copy that. Good luck.”

Vhetin hopped down off the pillar and helped his partner to the ground as well. Once they were safely away from the toppled column, he parted ways with her and made his way into the darkness. Through his helmet’s 360-degree vision, he could clearly see as she dwindled away into the dark. After a few short moments, she was gone.

His HUD’s gamma filter was triggered by the dim lighting and sprang to life at its highest setting. Within moments the area around him began to glow a highly contrasted black and white, chasing away the shadows. It was a jarring transition, but the courtyard became much easier to see.

Not that there was much to see in the first place. The compound was a drab, boring collection of duracrete buildings spread out across a similarly boring duracrete pad. There were stacks of supply crates and power pylons scattered about here and there, but nothing conclusive that suggested it was a criminal base of operations.

_So where are the signs of battle? Where are the bodies, the blaster burns?_

His analytical side sprang into action, formulating a list of possible scenarios.

 _The attacker could have decided to just kill Kassh and be done with it,_ he thought. _Could have somehow snuck in and planted some kind of pule vaporizer. It would have incinerated everyone in the base and the wind would have done away with the ashes._

_Or they could have lured the Midnight Ultraviolet forces away from the compound, away from the defenses set up here. If they created a big enough distraction — like shutting down the environmental processors — it would have drawn the guards safely away._

_Or,_ he continued to think, _maybe Kassh was never here to begin with. Maybe he just_ _… packed up and moved on. It’s possible, and it would explain the lack of life here. Makes our job tougher, though._

He paused near a rickety-looking amalgamation of snake-like power lines and durasteel girders. It was a conduit tower, intended to transfer power to the rest of the complex. He looked up and saw the device was powered down just like the electrified fence.

“Someone must have cut energy flow to this power grid before they hit it,” he reported into his helmet's comm. “Smart move, as ambush tactics go. Anything on your end?”

“ _I'm about thirty meters from the pillar_ ,” his partner replied, voice garbled by the static of her comlink. “ _I'm near some kind of supply shed. It's heavily damaged, probably from grenade fire. No power on this end either_.”

“That takes care of the turrets, then,” Vhetin said. “Probably what our mysterious attacker was planning from the start. Remove electricity, the turrets and the fence goes down, and the guards are lured away from the base. Smart.”

“ _If you say so_ ,” Jay sighed. “ _But there_ _’s still the matter of the armed patrols and the freaking Kath hounds._ ”

“Not to mention the Gen'dai enforcer,” he reminded her.

“ _What exactly is a Gen'dai anyway_? _I_ _’ve heard of them before, but…_ ”

“Oh, you know,” Vhetin slowly stepped over a fallen conduit cable. “Big, bulky aliens with ropy purple muscles. Like if you bulked up on steroids, then stripped your skin off.”

“ _And what's so terrifying about a guy with his skin stripped off?_ ”

“Besides the fact that Gen’dai are more than three meters tall, wear near-impenetrable body armor, and are virtually impossible to kill?”

“ _Oh_.”

Vhetin picked his way across a pile of debris that had apparently flown loose from the toppled tower, keeping his gaze half on the area ahead of him and half on the tiny rectangular window along the top of his HUD that showed his helmet's 360-degree vision.

“As far as I know,” he continued slowly, “I’ve only ever met one. A bounty hunter named Durge.”

“ _You're kidding._ ” Jay’s voice was shot through with disbelief. “ _Please tell me you_ _’re kidding.”_

“No,” he replied with a frown. “Why?”

“ _You've seriously never heard of Durge?_ ”

“I only worked with him once. He's ruthless and bloodthirsty. Not really my type.” This was a surprising change of pace; usually it was him providing Jay with information, not the other way around. “He has a reputation for high-stakes bounties, usually taken dead rather than alive. Apart from that things get bogged down in rumor and hearsay. What do you know about him?”

“ _Please_ ,” Jay said. “ _You don't give me enough credit. You're talking to the girl who wanted to join the non-clone branch of the Republic Grand Army at age six. I was probably the most politically-aware girl on Corellia at the time. I learned everything about the Wars that I could._ ”

“I never pegged you for a historian.”

“ _Technically it was current events back then._ _”_

“Fair enough. So what can you tell me about Durge?”

“ _Well, I know he worked for the Separatists during the Clone Wars and was responsible for almost as many slaughters as General Grievous. He spearheaded the chemical weapon attack on Naboo and personally fought Jedi Master Windu face to face on two separate occasions — and survived both._ _”_

She paused and he could almost see her confused frown. _“I heard that General Skywalker and General Kenobi had flown him into a sun, though. Everyone assumed that he was dead after that._ ”

Vhetin reached out and traced his gloved fingers along the wall of a nearby building. Seared through the side of the building was a melted, meter-wide hole. If he recalled correctly, Durge's weapon of choice was a huge arm-mounted turbolaser. Interesting...

“Well, either we have another Gen'dai on the loose here,” he murmured, “or everyone assumed wrong.”

“ _Creepy_ ,” Jay observed, then fell silent.

After a few minutes more of silent observation, Vhetin activated his comm again. “So what exactly is it with you and kath hounds?”

“ _What_?”

“You seem nervous about the kath hounds Kassh is supposed to have here. Why?”

“ _Oh..._ ” she hesitated. “ _One of my neighbors had a kath hound as a pet when I was a kid. It was constantly trying to jump into our yard and come after us. One day the monster managed to attack one of my brothers. He spent two weeks in the hospital while the doctors stitched his face back together afterwards. Those cranial horns can do serious damage._ _”_

“Was he all right?”

“ _More or less. One of his eyes never pointed the right direction again. But I've been scared of kath hounds ever -_ ”

She broke off without warning. For a moment Vhetin thought their connection had been severed, but he could still hear a hint of audio backwash from her end of the comm.

“Jay?” he said, turning in her direction. “Are you there? Jay, come in.”

“ _Yeah, uh..._ ” she paused. He heard her gulp loudly. “ _I've got blood over here. And... and a body._ ”

“A body?” he echoed. “Who is it?”

“ _Hard to, uh... hard to tell. Um... there isn't much left._ ”

“What the hell does that mean?” He shouldered his rifle and sprinted in Jay's direction, leaping over the fallen pillar in two great bounds, landing hard, and setting off again. He skidded to a halt only when Jay came into view. She was kneeling next to a pool of blood, which showed up black on Vhetin's highly-contrasted HUD. She jumped when he came into view, looking over at him with wide eyes. When she realized it was him she relaxed and let out a long breath.

“I'm glad you're here,” she whispered. She gestured to the pool of blood. “What do you make of this?”

Vhetin set his HUD's gamma filter back to normal and shone his rifle light on it. The pale white light shimmered as it reflected off the bloody pool spattered across the duracrete ground — the pool was orange. He frowned and cocked his head as he observed the streams of blood stretching off to the right, like someone had dragged something heavy through the puddle. He gestured in the direction of the gory streaks.

“Is that where the body is?”

“If you're stomach's feeling strong, it's right over there.” She pointed to her right, deeper into the darkness. She quickly turned away again, putting her hand to her lips to cover her mouth. Vhetin frowned, got to his feet, and stepped in the direction she had indicated.

“Just follow the blood,” she added quietly as he left.

The sporadic trail of orange blood led some distance away from the original pool. That meant that either the body had been dragged in that direction, or the dying being had crawled a fair distance before finally expiring. As he got closer, he began to put more money on the former.

There _was_ no body, at least not to speak of; just a truncated waist and legs and a mess of gory entrails. The victim had been wearing a greenish coverall that had been ripped to shreds in the attack. Vhetin knelt near it and saw they were slash marks along the ragged hem made by either a dull vibroblade or — more likely — teeth.

He reactivated the comm channel to his partner. “Well I have good news and bad news.”

“ _Good news first, please_.”

“The body isn’t Kassh.”

“ _Well at least we haven_ _’t gone all this way for nothing.”_ She hesitated, then called back, “ _And the bad news?_ ”

He grimaced. “It looks like your kath hounds are loose.”

“ _Son of a-_ ”

A long howl echoed through the compound.

Vhetin's gaze snapped up, his HUD instantly converting into combat mode. The holographic display that stretched across the interior of his helmet lit up in reds and oranges as his HUD transferred to thermal imaging. Readouts showing ambient temperature, wind direction, and the chemical makeup of the air fizzled out, to be replaced with tactical information about potential cover or sniper roosts. A small window appeared in the bottom left of his HUD, showing the amount of ammunition in his rifle.

Jay sprinted out of the darkness behind him with rifle held at the ready. Vhetin glanced at her and nodded in encouragement, standing to his full height and dropping into a combat-prepped stance as well. Another howl, from somewhere ahead of them.

“Where are they?” Jay hissed, the stock of her rifle tucked tight against her cheek. She swiveled back and forth, shining her rifle light through the darkness. Vhetin didn’t answer, tense and wary of any signs of hostiles. His HUD couldn’t pick out anything, no matter how high he set his sensors, but—

_BOOM!_

A bright neon-green turbolaser bolt roared to life in the dark, racing toward them with a crackling rumble of thunderous noise.

“ _Down_!” Vhetin yelled, tackling Jay from the side and driving them both out of the way of the laser bolt. The crackling beam smashed into a building behind them, fanning out into a bright emerald blob of light before exploding against the duracrete and melting a meter-wide hole in the building's wall. Vhetin hunched his back, using the hard plating of his armor to shelter both himself and his partner from the rubble.

“What in the hell-?” Jay began to say, raising her head and shaking hair out of her eyes. Chips of hot duracrete – rubble from the exploded wall – began to rain down around them and pepper the ground. Another deep rumble began to build from the somewhere up ahead.

Vhetin scrambled to his feet, grabbing Jay's wrist and dragging her up with him. “We have to move!”

Another bolt shot through the darkness and raced by them, missing by less than a meter. It hit the same building and the roof erupted in a fountain of debris. Jay pulled her wrist from his grasp and swiveled to fire in the direction of the emerald turbolaser fire, but he shoved her blaster down and frantically gestured at her.

“Run towards it!”

“Are you _crazy_?!” she shouted. She raised her rifle again and opened fire towards the source of the turbolaser bolts. “We’ll be vaporized!”

“If we get closer, it won’t be able to attack! It’ll risk hitting itself!”

Jay cursed and hesitated for a half-second. Then she cursed again, louder, and sprinted in the direction of the huge laser shots as fast as her feet could carry her. Vhetin fired off a few bolts of his own as a distraction, running to the right to draw the fire away from her.

Still, it was a big gun. Vhetin had to somersault to one side to avoid another lethal laser bolt. It plowed hard against the duracrete behind him with a detonation of fire and sound, sending molten duracrete pattering against his rocket pack and the back of his helmet. He winced as a few lucky chips began burning through his flight suit.

He ignored the pain and gritted his teeth, forcing himself to move faster, as fast as he could manage. He pelted through the darkness and fog until another building came into view ahead of him. Built low to the ground with a curved rooftop, this structure looked identical to any other in the compound save for a single thing.

A huge, hulking silhouette stood before the front entrance door. Easily three meters tall, the shadowy being was a hulking mass of armor plates, mechanical implants, and rock-hard muscle. A contoured durasteel helmet covered the being's head, not dissimilar to Darth Vader's death’s-head facemask.

The being stepped forward into the minimal amount of ambient light to reveal steel gray armor plating painted with red and purple flashes. A rough purple Mythosaur skull was painted across his contoured chest plate — but Vhetin knew this creature was no Mandalorian.

Jay slowed and stopped next to Vhetin, rifle aimed squarely at the being as it took another lumbering step forward. Its boots hit the ground with a dull thud reminiscent of the armored footfalls of an Imperial walker.

“You're late,” Durge boomed. “I was beginning to wonder whether you were going to find your way here at all.”

The monstrous Gen'dai snapped the armored fingers of his right hand. On cue, the slinking forms of three kath hounds crept out of the shadows and flanked him on either side. They snarled, saliva dribbling down out of their tooth-studded mouths, and tossed their horned heads. Their taloned paws scraped at the ground as sinewy tails lashed back and forth in anticipation of blood.

Jay winced at their warbling bark, then let out a quiet breath. “Oh good. He remembered the kriffing hounds.”

“You should have stayed in Bloody Dawn territory,” Durge thundered, stretching to his full height with a dark rumble of a snarl. “Sekha can’t protect you here. Not from me.”

“I'll take Durge,” Vhetin murmured. “My armor will protect me. You have to go for the hounds.”

“I’d be lying if I said I was excited,” Jay said, shifting her balance from foot to foot. “But if you want to take on the nine-foot death monster, be my guest. On three?”

Durge's mounted arm cannon began to rumble and glow green. He pulled back the massive charging rod with a tremendous _crack_ and began to raise it towards them. The weapon started to charge with a building whine and Vhetin tensed at the impending fire.

“Ah... let's just run at them. _Now_!”

They both broke for their separate targets. Vhetin raised his rifle and fired off as many shots as he could manage as quickly as his finger could mash the firing stud. Bright bolts of blaster fire screeched toward the towering hulk, popping harmlessly with bright flashes of sparks against his armor. As soon as he was close enough Vhetin leaped into the air and prepared to hit him with a powerful roundhouse kick.

Durge anticipated the move and caught Vhetin by the head, plucking him out of the air as easily as swatting a fly. He swung his captive around his shoulder and threw him hard, muscles rippling beneath his thick plate armor. Vhetin grunted in pain as he was smashed into the side of the building behind the massive hunter, hard enough to crack the duracrete. He crumpled to the ground, his rifle clattering out of his grasp.

The Gen'dai was on him before he could recover. The pounding booms of Durge's huge bootsteps swiftly drew closer and came to a halt behind him. Before he could rise, the Gen’dai planted a huge studded boot in the small of Vhetin’s back and sent him flying through the air again. He landed in a heap a few meters away, coughing and holding his chest.

Again, Durge's vise-tight grip closed around his helmet and he gasped as the titanic alien began to squeeze. His armor held, but the pressure was enough to send rippling waves of pain through his head.

Durge lifted his prisoner up to face his ridged mask and his scarlet eyes glowed malevolently within the shadowy confines of his ancient battle armor. His armor creaked as he squeezed – if possible – even harder.

“This is far too easy,” he rumbled. “Your reputation claims you are quite the fighter, Mandalorian. The real thing is rather disappointing.”

Vhetin grunted, curling his legs up and shoving his boots against Durge's facemask. He kicked out as hard as he could and tore himself free from the Gen’dai’s grasp. The alien staggered back a few steps with a surprised grunt, his grip loosened.

Not wasting a moment, Vhetin pulled his two pistols from their holsters on his belt and let loose with a volley of blaster bolts as he flew back through the air. He ignited his jetpack in a sharp burst for an extended flight time. The snapping of his pistols echoed through the darkness, the flashes at the end of the barrels lighting up the shadows around him and painting his armor with bright red highlights.

The blaster bolts pinged off Durge's body armor and ricocheted away, leaving nothing but small dents and scorch marks. The Gen'dai shrugged off the shots with an irritated toss of his helmeted head and stomped after his opponent with footsteps heavy enough to rattle the ground. Vhetin landed and rolled backward in a hasty reverse somersault, tossing aside the useless pistols and yanking his saber pike from his back. The sapphire blade sprang to life with a crackle of igniting plasma.

 _Snap-hiss_. The sound was instantly recognizable across the galaxy.

Only now did Durge pause. Even his super-durable body armor wouldn't stand up to the concentrated energy blade of a lightsaber and both hunters knew it. After a silent moment, the huge blaster cannon clanked, rotated, and slid back into his arm with the mechanical grating of metal on metal. His hand appeared through the gap it left, folding out from his armored gauntlet. He flicked his wrists and clenched his massive hands into fists as a meter-long vibroblade sprang from one gauntlet, a spiked flail and chain from the other.

“You truly wish to play this game, Mandalorian?” Durge raised both arms, activating the humming vibroblade and making the flail swing lazily. “Very well. Then let us play.”

With an otherworldly roar the Gen’dai leaped forward, swinging his flail at Vhetin's head. Vhetin ducked under the weapon and slid his saber up, not even bothering to aim. With a target as big as Durge, he was sure to hit _something_.

Sure enough, the saber severed Durge's vibroblade and sliced open his chest plate with a metallic shriek, melting a thin stripe of plating away. The massive alien took a step back and clapped a hand across the red-hot slash in his armor. Dark blue blood leaked from between his armored fingers, dripping down the front of his durasteel chest plate to patter to the ground at his feet.

A rumbling snarl of rage built up from within Durge’s helmet and his eye sockets filled with a blood-red light. He looked up at Vhetin and rumbled, “You'll pay for that, Mandalorian scum.”

Vhetin grinned beneath his helmet and motioned for his opponent to bring it on. He swung his lightsaber through the air in anticipation as the huge bounty hunter planted his feet for a charge.

Durge was lumbering forward almost before Vhetin had time to react, swinging the flail at the Mandalorian's head and balling up a giant fist for a punch to the gut. Vhetin dodged the flail, but wasn't fast enough to avoid the blow to the stomach; the meaty, armored fist hit him like a speeder truck to the gut. He doubled over, all the air knocked out of his lungs as Durge swung the flail over his head, preparing for a powerful downward stroke.

Vhetin gritted his teeth and threw himself sideways, out of the flail's path. The spiked ball at the end of the chain smashed against the duracrete ground and carved out a small impact crater with a shower of rubble. Durge bellowed, yanked the weapon up into the air again, and stomped after his prey once more. He roared at Vhetin in a language he couldn't understand and his shielded eyes pulsed red with fury.

Vhetin slashed upward with his saber and caught the Gen'dai in the chest again, carving a perpendicular slash to compliment his earlier score. If Durge felt the blow, he didn't show it. He backhanded Vhetin across the helmet and the smaller hunter was knocked back through the air, crumpling into a ball as he landed hard on his head.

Pain washed through his back and neck, sweeping over him like a hot wind. He grimaced behind his helmet and clenched both hands into fists as he fought to rise to his hands and knees. Blood was pouring from his nose, dripping down into his neck sleeve in uncomfortably warm rivulets. It had spattered the inside of his helmet, tinting his HUD a sickly reddish-black and blurring his vision of the world outside his armor.

 _Time to change tactics_ , he thought as he clambered to his feet once more _._

He crouched low and brushed his fingers across the keypad on his left gauntlet. A set of crosshairs inlaid themselves over his blood-smeared HUD and he centered them on Durge's massive chest. A blink of his eyes triggered his rocket pack’s offensive systems.

He felt a concussive jolt between his shoulder blades. Then, with a rushing explosion of exhaust, the missile mounted on his jet pack blasted away from its housing and shot through the air toward his opponent. It screamed through the air with an otherworldly whistle, propelled forward on a brilliant tail of fire and smoke.

Durge saw it a moment too late, rearing back in surprise. He attempted to move out of the way, to sidestep out of the rocket’s path, and instead caught the projectile square in the stomach. There was a flash of light and the bulky bounty hunter vanished in a billowing cloud of light, flame, and smoke. The _boom_ of the explosion shook the courtyard hard enough to knock Vhetin off his feet again.

He lay there for a few moments, his body screaming in at least ten different places. Then with a groan, he rolled onto his stomach and thought, _Fierfek, this is getting old._

Every limb was trembling with effort, every nerve seeming to scream at him to simply lay down and rest. But he ignored all these sensations and crawled to his hands and knees, forcing himself back to his feet. His lungs still wouldn't quite draw in a full breath and his head was still pounding from Durge's iron-hard grip.

 _Did I get the son of a bitch?_ he thought dazedly, ripping his blood-splattered helmet off his head and tossing it aside. He sucked in a clear breath of muggy Coruscant air. _Is he finally dead?_

Fate seemed particularly unkind to him today. The thought had barely passed through his mind before a deep groan sounded from behind the cloud of smoke wafting from the missile's impact site. Vhetin hefted his pike once more, preparing for another attack.

Durge did not disappoint. He came charging out of the smoke, arm cannon extended and glowing a sickly yellow-green with overcharge on one arm. His armor was warped, blackened, and twisted, but still largely intact. Part of his face mask had been blown away, revealing mottled purple skin and gnashing teeth. His red eyes shone through the darkness as he stormed straight for Vhetin.

“What does it take to kill you?” Vhetin shouted at the Gen'dai, backpedaling frantically to avoid flailing fists larger than his head.

“ _I... am... INVINCIBLE!_ ” Durge screamed as he lashed out with the flail. Vhetin threw his momentum backwards and back-flipped out of his opponent's reach, now driven completely into defensive tactics. The battle-scarred alien roared, spittle flying from the exposed portion of his mouth, and leveled his arm cannon.

Vhetin had enough time to see the targeting sight along the side of the weapon glow red before it fired. He cursed and rolled sideways, the turbolaser bolt missing him by less than a foot. He felt the heat of the laser on his bared face as it screeched through the air past him. A second later it detonated, lighting his back with a sickly emerald glow.

He ignited his lightsaber as he came to his feet, darting forward and slicing down before his opponent could attack again. The saber hissed, Durge screamed, and the arm holding the massive compound turbolaser separated from his body and hit the ground with a thump. A spray of purple-black blood splattered Vhetin’s armor and the duracrete beneath his feet.

Durge arched his back and roared, clutching his stump of an arm, and Vhetin grinned triumphantly under his helmet. Yet his triumph was short-lived.

Barely seconds after the severed limb hit the ground, pinkish-purple tendrils snaked from the cauterized stump of Durge’s arm, creeping out from the severed red-hot armor like fast-growing roots. Before Vhetin's eyes, they solidified into rock-hard bicep, forearm, and fist. Before Vhetin could marvel at the speed of his foe’s recovery, the Gen’dai warrior backhanded him across his unarmored face with a fist as hard as stone.

He flew head-over-heels, bouncing across the duracrete before bumping up against the base of a power conduit tower. His head hit the metal support struts with a hard _clang_ and stars burst in his vision in a dizzying arc of tiny pinpricks of light. He tried to rise, failed, and feebly let his head hit against the durasteel pylons behind him, panting hard and holding his aching chest.

This wasn’t working. He couldn’t match Durge in hand-to-hand combat, even with a lightsaber. The Gen’dai was simply too big and too strong. He needed an edge, something that would give him the striking distance necessary to stop him.

With a grimace, he craned his neck and looked up at the tall power conduit tower that stretched above him, maybe fifteen meters into the air. It was tall enough that maybe…

Pounding footsteps signaled Durge’s approach. Even as Vhetin looked back to the ground ahead of him he could see the armored behemoth’s shadow looming through the darkness, heading for him with purpose. Those baleful scarlet eyes cut through the gloom like the flashing eyes of a wrathful rancor.

Vhetin had nowhere left to run. So he let out a tortured groan as he scrambled back to his feet, then tightened his grip on his lightsaber, ready to fight once more.

_~~~~~~~~_

Jay screamed as the first kath hound leaped on her, driving her down onto her back. She punched and kicked the snarling animal in every place she could think of, but couldn't get the thing off her.

The hound – a huge canine beast with mottled black-green fur and sharp cranial horns – blasted her face with hot, stinking breath as it tossed its head and snapped its jaws. She punched it in the ribs to no apparent effect. A second and third punch to the neck and shoulder was met with similar failure. It barked and snarled as hot tendrils of drool dribbled down its maw and onto her jacket.

She finally managed to grab hold of its muzzle before it could bite down on her arm and used it as a handhold to pull it off and away from her. She yanked upward on the creature's snout with all her might and it leaped away with a pained yelp.

Before she could even roll onto her hands and knees, another of the three kath hounds barreled hard into her side, knocking her off-balance once more. She dug her hands into the creature's beige-brown fur and tried to shove the thing off of her. It was no use. The hound was too heavy.

“Damn you!” she shouted, reaching frantically for her fallen rifle. The third of the beasts snarled at her, baring its teeth and pawing at the ground as it crouched low over her weapon.

She punched the beige-brown hound in the ribs, hard enough to make it yelp in pain and hop a half-step away. She took advantage of the momentary pause, rolling sideways towards her blaster, and let out a shout of triumph as her hand wrapped around the rifle's contoured grip. The black-green kath hound tried to leap at her extended arm, but she pulled back in time to avoid the creature's gnashing teeth.

She staggered to her feet and squeezed the trigger, unleashing a volley of bolts at the nearest creature. The brown-gray hound let out a high-pitched yelp and loped off into the darkness, whining the whole way.

The battle fell still as her blaster shots faded into the silence. The other two hounds stared after their retreating companion, then slowly turned their yellow gazes back to Jay as if weighing their chances of victory. She knew she had to change her tactics if she wanted to survive the next few minutes. These were more than just mindless, bloodthirsty beasts; they were obviously more intelligent than she previously thought.

The two remaining hounds began fanning out, circling her in opposite directions. Their paws padded almost silently against the duracrete ground and their eyes blazed with an eerie illumination in the gloom. Jay quickly reloaded her rifle and snapped off two warning shots to keep the creatures at bay. The intended target dodged both of them and growled at her again. It crouched low to the ground and snarled at her, baring its sharp fangs and letting out a low bark.

She heard the sudden patter of paws on duracrete and spun, snapping her elbow out as she did. She caught her would-be ambusher in the jaw, sending it sprawling to the ground. The hound whimpered and scrambled back to its feet, tail lashing, and leaped again before she could move away.

Fangs sank into her arm and she screamed in pain, staggering under the sudden weight. The hound latched tight, writhing and shaking its head as it tried to drag her down to her knees. Fire washed up Jay’s arm. The other kath hound saw its opening.

A heavy weight slammed into Jay's back and shoved her to her knees. She heard the snarling of the second hound, felt its hot saliva dribble down her back, felt its claws cut through her cloth jacket like it was flittersilk.

Pain was overwhelming her now and the stink and snarling of the hounds invaded her senses. She could still feel the hound latched onto her arm raking its head back and forth, its teeth lacerating the skin of her forearm. The one on her back sank its teeth into her shoulder and adopted a similar shaking routine, trying with all its might to pin her to the ground and leave her chest and throat open to attack.

She didn’t have anywhere to go, nor did she have a plan for how to dislodge her attackers. So instead of fighting she simply shoved backwards, falling right on top of the creature behind her. A half-second later there was a sharp, wet _snap_ and a high-pitched squeal of pain. The teeth vanished from her shoulder and the hound at her back scrambled away from her, yapping loudly.

Freed from the weight of the beast on her back, she was about to curl up, grab the hidden blade sheathed down her boot, and stab down at the hound still latched onto her arm. The humming vibroblade sliced open the kath hounds muzzle with a sizzle and a splash of blood. The monster yelped and released her, hopping back a few steps and dropping into a predatory slouch.

The chaos of battle ebbed for a split second and she craned her neck to see the first hound limping away on three legs; the fourth was bent at an unnatural angle with a sharp sliver of bone protruding from its black-green fur. Her weight had snapped its leg. It wouldn’t be in any mood to fight her again soon.

But the last hound leaped back into the fray before she could even draw in a full breath, trying to take advantage of her momentary distraction. It sailed through the air toward her, teeth bared and aimed for her throat. In a last, desperate measure, Jay hefted her rifle up and squeezed off a single shot. A brilliant bolt of blue light was loosed from the barrel with a loud _pow_.

The bolt hit the creature in the leg and the hound stumbled and crumpled to the ground with a pathetic whine. Before she could give herself time to think, she raised the rifle and fired again, hitting it in the neck and then again in the stomach. Not satisfied, she mashed the firing stud and unloaded her entire ammo cartridge into the hound’s belly.

The beast twitched and died, falling onto its side with a slow grace belying its ferocity. It huffed out a short wheeze, then fell still.

Quiet overwhelmed her: no more snarling, no more snapping jaws or scrabbling paws. Just the distant hum of a lightsaber and the occasional concussive _boom_ of Durge’s turbolaser.

The fight was over. Jay gasped and fell to her knees, pressing a palm against the deep gash on her shoulder. Her body was shivering violently from adrenaline and pain, and every muscle seemed to be on fire. Blood — both hers and that of the hounds — stained the ground all around her. She had at least four bite wounds and two gashes on her left arm, as well as another deep bite and surely countless lacerations across her shoulder and back.

But she was _alive_! She’d _won!_ She took a deep breath and looked around, laughing in lightheaded triumph at her victory. Then she raised her rifle and shot the dead hound again, just to be safe.

An explosion split the silence, loud enough to force Jay to cover her ears.

 _What... Vhetin!_ She hoisted her rifle up again and, despite her wounds and the exhaustion tugging at her limbs, staggered to her feet once more. _Where is he? And where's Durge?_

A huge neon green blaster roared through the darkness, punching through a building behind her. She ducked as the building exploded into chunks bigger than she was. A second later she threw herself to the ground as huge jagged hunks of building flew over her head, propelled on an expanding ball of fire.

_Well there_ _’s the big one._

She raised herself to her hands and knees, scanning the darkness for the source of the deadly cannon bolt. With a gun like that, Durge would be able to vaporize her from a position well out of range of her blaster rifle.

A quiet _clang_ drew her attention. She turned her head and saw a dark, man-sized shadow scaling one of the power conduit towers a few meters from her. Pulling himself hand-over-hand, Vhetin was scaling the durasteel tower with almost unnatural speed. He stopped twenty feet above the ground and hung there, igniting a single blue lightsaber. He watched the ground below intently, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Huge, booming footsteps rang through the quiet of the compound. Jay scrambled to her feet, ducking down behind a large industrial barrel as Durge drew closer. Her breath hitched in her throat, her heart thudding uncomfortably hard against her breastbone.

The Gen’dai’s hulking form lumbered through the darkness only a meter from her hiding place. He was holding his cannon arm, which had been severed at the shoulder, like a rifle. Where the arm had been was now a rippling, pink-purple mass of flesh and muscle that flexed and undulated with every movement. As Jay watched, the multicolored arm suddenly dissolved into a twisting mass of fleshy tendrils that reached for the cauterized end of the damaged cannon arm.

Durge held up the cannon arm and the two ends meshed together like the intertwining tentacles of a Kamino kraken. A second later he flexed his now reattached limb and let out a low rumble of fury. The cannon let out a short burst of steam and began to charge once more.

Jay’s eyes widened at the sight. If he could reattach body parts, what hope did they have to stop him?

He lumbered off once more, the arm cannon now glowing bright green. A red targeting laser sprang to life and swept the area, slicing through the shadows with a hum. Jay had to press herself closer to the wall as the sight passed by her hiding place.

High above, Vhetin was forced to move to a more secure place on the conduit tower. His foot slipped along the way and his armored boot made a soft clashing sound against the durasteel beams near him. Durge's ravaged mask snapped toward the sound. His cannon swiftly followed.

 _Oh no._ Jay’s blood ran cold. _I can't let Durge find him up there!_

She leaped from cover before she could think better of it, firing at the giant bounty hunter as she did. The Gen'dai grunted in irritation as blaster bolts ricocheted off his back plate and turned to face her. She kept running, firing fast and wild as she fled.

The blaster bolts just bounced off Durge's dirty gray-purple armor, leaving little more than tiny scorches against the gunmetal gray plating. She must have hit him fifteen times but he just kept stomping toward her, oblivious to her efforts and refusing to even flinch under the onslaught. His arm-mounted cannon let out a high-pitched whine as he brought it to bear on her.

The cannon exploded in a fan of sickly green light and a blazing green laser bolt flashed toward her. A heartbeat later the ground exploded beneath her feet, carving a meter-deep crater in the duracrete ground and tossing her into the air. She landed in a smoking heap and screamed, her rifle clattering far from her reach. A bolt of agony ripped through her and the world dissolved into a wash of fire.

Durge lumbered forward, stopping beneath Vhetin's perch and holding the cannon towards her. Jay’s eyes streamed with hot tears, but through the hazy vision she could easily make out a turbolaser barrel larger than her head, the cannon barrel spinning and glowing bright emerald as it charged.

“Far better than you have challenged me, girl,” Durge thundered, his scarlet eyes glowing malevolently within the confines of his ghoulish mask. “Die knowing that you didn’t even make me break a sweat.”

High above, Vhetin released his grip and plummeted down through the darkness toward the unsuspecting Gen'dai. His lightsaber raced through the darkness and sliced down through Durge's neck with a sizzle of blazing plasma. The Mandalorian landed hard in a clatter of armor plates behind the massive Gen'dai, rolled, and came up in a combat-ready stance, his saber blade aimed directly at his opponent.

No counterattack came.

Durge was standing stiffly, his turbolaser lowered and his other hand twitching sporadically. Dark blue blood pooled on the duracrete below him, pouring down from the white-hot gash in his neck and chest. Waving purplish tendrils emerged from the saber wound, peeking through the seared armor like inquisitive worms seeking rain.

Then his body separated into diagonally-sliced halves that fell apart and hit the ground with heavy _thuds_. His massive armored hands twitched twice, then fell still.

All was still.

Vhetin waited, saber held high, for a few moments more. His breath came in short, harsh gasps and his grip on his lightsaber trembled violently. When Durge did not rise, he approached the severed halves of the corpse slowly, nudging the larger piece of the body with his boot. Unsatisfied, he pulled back and severed Durge's armored head with a single swift slash of his blade.

Jay was distantly shocked at the brutality of the action as Durge's head split from his trunk with a splash of the same dark blue blood. Then she gasped in pain and curled into a tighter ball, watching wisps of smoke wafting up from her body. Pain raced through her veins, swallowing every sense available to her.

The Mandalorian straightened, panting hard, and looked around the clearing. As soon as he saw Jay's limp form he instantly sprinted over. A hand fell on her shoulder – a gentle motion that nonetheless sent agonizing spikes through Jay's body. She whimpered and curled up tighter, shrinking away from his touch.

“Jay... Are you all right?”

“D-do I l-look all right?” she stammered, her eyelids flickering. Even the labor of speaking broke her down into agonized shivers. Her vision was wavering and watering so badly she could barely pick him out of the shadows around him. She couldn't even begin to make out the features of his helmetless face as it hovered over her.

“You’re going to be fine,” he reassured her. He gently pulled off her jacket, wrapping it around her like a blanket. He patted out the smoldering burns on her back and shoulders with surprisingly gentle hands and said, “Can you walk?”

“S-stop asking s-stupid questions.”

“Okay,” he sighed with a terse nod. “So you can't walk. We still need to get out of here. It's obvious Kassh isn't here, the CSF is probably on its way, and Muscles back there isn't going to stay sleepy for long.”

“W-what are you t-talking ab-bout?” she asked, wincing as he extinguished a still-flaming section of her jacket. She craned her neck up and stared again at the severed sections of Durge’s body. “Y-you cut the b-bastard in-n _half_.”

“Unfortunately, that won't keep him down forever. He was flown into a sun and still didn't die, remember?”

Jay squeezed her eyes shut and said nothing more. Vhetin put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You're going to be fine. A few bacta injections and you'll be good as new. I'm going to get you back to _Void,_ then we'll head out of here, all right?”

With careful motions he hauled her to her feet, slinging her arm around his shoulders and supporting her weight. Her mind was growing hazier by the minute, and she felt sleep tugging at her eyelids.

She tried to look over to see his face, to get a look at the man behind the helmet as he helped her limp back to the ship. The question had been nagging at her almost ever since she'd met him. But her vision was swiftly growing darker, and she found it harder and harder to keep her eyes open.

She blinked once, then slipped away into unconsciousness.

~~~~~~~~

Vhetin half-carried an unconscious Jay across the ruined courtyard, very aware that Durge's truncated limbs were beginning to twitch and move once more. He quickened his pace, pausing only to grab his saber pike and replace his helmet. The interior of the bucket was still splattered with blood, but he didn't have time to clean it. He needed to get them out of here as quickly as possible.

 _What in the hell happened here?_ he wondered one last time, glancing around the clearing and still capturing everything on his helmet's recorder. The ruined courtyard, the toppled pillar, the lack of power, the deserted compound…

All pointed to an obvious conclusion: someone had beat them there. Their mysterious competitor, Kalyn Farnmir, perhaps? Or perhaps a new party, newly arrived to the hunt.

Even Durge showed evidence supporting that theory. Their fight with the Gen'dai had been costly, but the giant mercenary had not been in top condition. He'd been recovering from a recent battle, still suffering from recent wounds. Vhetin was no pushover, but he knew both he and his partner would be dead if the Gen’dai had been fighting with all his strength.

Yes, someone had already been here. Someone else had eliminated the perimeter defenses, lured away or incapacitated the guards, and attacked — and _defeated_ — Durge before he and Jay had ever arrived. If it had been Farnmir, he had severely underestimated her abilities. She was obviously a far more capable warrior than he originally given her credit for.

Normally he would have dropped everything and set all his resources to heading after his competition and removing them from play before any further setbacks. But with Jay wounded and Durge already on the mend, Farnmir was currently the least of their worries. He needed to get his partner to safety and get away from Coruscant. Then and only then could he find a new vantage point to start his hunt again. It was a setback to be sure, but everyone was still walking away alive. For the moment.

As _Void_ 's familiar spearhead shape came into view through the smog, Vhetin let out a sigh of relief. His ship had never been a more welcome sight.

 _Well,_ he thought as he carried Jay up the landing ramp, _there was that time on Bogg Five, but... that doesn't really count. She wasn't my ship back then._

He wasted no time securing Jay in the medical bay, vaguely realizing it was the second time since meeting her that he'd done so, and hooked a bacta IV into the back of her hand. He stayed for a moment to make sure she was going to be all right, setting his helmet systems to warn him if her vital signs changed, then headed for the cockpit to warm up the ship's engines.

Halfway there, an explosion shook the deck and threw him hard against the bulkhead. In the relative quiet as the ensuing rumble died away Vhetin heard the muffled, roaring scream of an enraged Gen'dai outside.

He sighed and let out a grunted curse. “Oh kark it all...”

He sprinted for the cockpit and threw himself into the copilot's chair, hitting several controls as soon as he was able. He didn't even bother with the usual necessary pre-flight systems check, gunning the engines as fast as safely possible. The deck bucked beneath him again and the shields drained to half strength. Sparks popped over his head, dancing through the air. The lights in the cockpit flickered, but power wasn’t drained — not yet.

 _Void_ groaned as the engines fired and the engines howled, but the ship didn’t lift into the sky. Vhetin frowned and increased power flow. The floor trembled and jumped beneath his feet, the entire vessel shaking around him, but still didn’t take off. It just shook and bounced on its landing struts, scraping hard against the ground. He pushed the engines to two hundred percent, hearing another bellow from Durge.

He tapped in a command to bring up the external video feed. A hologram sprang to life in midair before him, displaying the front port view of the ship — all clear. He quickly switched to the top rear view and this time the view very clearly showed the culprit: Durge was back and angrier than ever.

Most of the alien’s armor had been abandoned back in the base, and all that remained was part of his stomach plates, sections of his leg armor, and his arm-mounted cannon. The rest of his body was exposed to the muggy Coruscant air, revealing Durge’s true nature: a hulking mass of pinkish-purple muscle that flexed and rippled with every movement. He was easily three times larger than before, and his right arm was nothing but flexing tendrils of muscle tissue. That arm was currently embedded within _Void_ 's engine housing, keeping the ship firmly rooted on the ground.

“ _No one survives!_ _”_ Durge opened a tooth-studded maw and bellowed, “ _NO ONE SURVIVES!_ ”

Vhetin popped the cap on a glowing red button on the command console, his clenched fist hovering over it. Durge roared again, obviously attempting to rip the engines from their housing and cripple the ship before it could escape. The Mandalorian’s face pulled down into a scowl as he pushed the engines to three hundred percent, spraying fifteen-meter flames back at Durge. Blue-white fire enveloped the Gen'dai and his muscles blackened and crackled from the heat. The alien warrior roared in pain, his eyes glowing red as thick strands of saliva flew from his mouth.

“Get the hell off my ship,” Vhetin growled, “you disgusting son of a bitch.”

He hit the red button. The deck bucked as if hit by another of Durge's turbolaser blasts. A crackling sound passed down the hull and Vhetin lost video contact as a supercharged electric current flashed across the ship's exterior, burning Durge's tendrils away from the metal with a loud sizzle and a flash of light.

A high pitched shriek of pain could be heard from outside and a freed _Void_ shot into the sky at last, blasting away from the abandoned complex. The engines screamed, propelling the freighter into the sky on a pillar of fiery exhaust. Durge’s enraged roar followed _Void_ into the sky, loud enough that Vhetin heard it from his place in the pilot's seat.

But after a few moments the Midnight Ultraviolet base – and the enraged Gen’dai left there – was lost amid the endless city-sprawl of Coruscant. _Void_ rocketed away from the atmospheric sector and climbed for the lower atmosphere.

They were free. They were safe.

As _Void_ headed for orbit, Vhetin collapsed back against his seat and let out a long breath, pulling off his bloodstained helmet again and letting it bounce across the floor. His hands trembled, his face was pale and splattered with blood, and his breath was coming in short gasps. He ran a hand through his hair, managing to do nothing but smear it with blood as well. Yet he couldn’t help but laugh with giddy relief.

According to the different readouts on the control console, _Void_ was only slightly damaged: a crack in the housing of one ion engine, an overheating electro-current capacitator, and other minor problems. The important thing was that they had escaped more or less—

 _Well, not unharmed,_ he thought, thinking of Jay. _But alive at least. And able to fight another day._

He swiveled in his seat, struggling back to his feet as his muscles screamed in protest. He and Jay both had taken a hell of a beating at Durge's hands, and it would take some time before either of them were in any shape to fight again. But they were alive at least. Many who had fought Durge could not claim the same.

He shook his head. Sekha's information had been accurate, but it had cost more than he’d realized. Jay would be fine, walking and talking as usual in just a couple hours, but it was still too close for comfort. Going to Kassh’s facility had been a dangerous gamble and one that had not paid off in the end. Kassh had vanished to the wind and any potential trail as to his whereabouts were now cold. Vhetin couldn’t begin to wonder where to start now.

But the hunt wasn’t over. Not yet, at least.

Their Twi’lek friend had not been one of the corpses found at the compound. Chances were good that he had fled or that he had been captured by Kalyn Farnmir. Farnmir herself had obviously survived the attack, as she hadn’t been splattered across the ground at Durge’s feet. Pair that with the evidence that Durge had been injured and that he’d been functioning well enough to attack them…

It meant only one thing: the Gen’dai had talked.

He didn’t know how the huntress had managed it, but she had obviously somehow wheedled enough information out of Durge to warrant a hasty retreat, leaving the Gen’dai very much alive and _very_ angry.

That meant she was now their only lead.

 _We need to find her_ , Vhetin said, _and pray she hasn_ _’t beaten us to the target already._


	4. The Enemy of My Enemy

**Imperial City, Planetary Orbit, Sector Y-398-29**

A winged, saber-shaped gap in space, black on black, hung in orbit over the dirty gray orb of Coruscant. No light emanated from it save for the faint orange glow of powered-down ion drives. It made no outward sound, as most of its systems were currently powered down. The ship just sat in space, a watchful wraith in the void, not moving even as transports three times its size roared past only meters away.

The Imperial forces surrounding the planet had no desire to investigate the ship. Most didn’t even know it was there. On a planet like Coruscant, where trillions of ships entered and exited the system daily, there was little the Imperials could do to clamp their iron fist down on a space-faring traveler's passage. Most didn’t even try.

For hours the ship hung there, waiting and watching. And its pilot was indeed waiting for something. Something very special.

“Anything yet?” Kalyn Farnmir said to the computer, tapping a button on the flashing green command console with a single gloved hand.

The darkness within the cockpit drew back slightly as an olive-colored holographic loading screen sprang to life before her. The screen was soon replaced by a long list of data and video windows displaying the security cams inside equatorial spaceports.

It was a good bet that her competitor would set down there, as they were the busiest ports on the planet. Bounty hunters were drawn to crowds instinctively — crowds offered anonymity, after all, and gave any merc worth his salt an easy way to evade attention.

Unfortunately for him, he didn't know that Kalyn had hidden computer taps throughout the Imperial security network, and could hack into virtually any security camera across the planet, anywhere and at any time. It hadn’t been cheap and it would only last until an attentive Imperial spotted the tap, but for a hunt like this, it was worth every credit.

Yet even with that major advantage, Coruscant was still a big planet. And finding a single ship out of trillions was not easy. She’d been sitting here for the past four hours with no luck. If her target was here, he was sneakier than she gave him credit for.

“Well?” She pressed. “What are your findings?”

“ _Inconclusive as of yet,_ ” the smooth voice of the onboard computer intelligence replied. “ _But the search is somewhat... broad. There has been no noteworthy contact between underworld forces in the industrial sectors and Mandalorian bounty hunters. It is possible Countess Sekha_ _’haji did not deign to report her meeting with the target.”_

“Not surprising, considering her track record with bureaucracy.” Kalyn leaned forward and rubbed wearily at the bridge of her nose. “What about the ship ID search?”

 _“Similarly inconclusive,”_ the AI’s bland tone seemed to take on a note of sheepishness. “ _Imperial HoloNet uplinks have been hardened against hacking attempts since your last reported hunt. Such a broad search would undoubtedly draw unwanted attention. With more specific input data I could-_ ”

“Narrow search parameters to ships of Kuati make,” Kalyn interrupted, leaning back in the pilot's seat and crossing her legs. “An Abodel prototype stealth model with a black and purple color scheme. See if that narrows it down at all.”

“ _With specified search parameters, I shall compile all relevant data in approximately fifteen galactic standard hours._ ”

“Restrict the search to the last five hours of video feed,” Kalyn said. “That outpost on Rhen Var was ransacked yesterday afternoon. And I don't think Vhetin will stay at Bloody Dawn headquarters a second longer than he has to.”

“Y _ou do not believe that your warning frightened this Mandalorian away?_ ”

She shrugged, her armored pauldrons creaking softly as she did. “Mandos are tough barves, and this is apparently one of the more stubborn ones when it comes to hunting. His dossier didn’t paint the picture of a man who faltered under pressure.”

“ _But do you not believe that your warning frightened him away?_ ”

“Look at the evidence: Sekha posts a bounty on Pollamo and days later it's all over the Underworld channels that an Imperial base on Rhen Var has been destroyed and Pollamo has been kidnapped. Only hours after that, this Vhetin character’s ship appears on Coruscant making a beeline for Bloody Dawn headquarters.”

She shifted in her seat. “My guess is that he went to Sekha for info. She said she'd trade it if he brought Pollamo in, and now he's one step closer to catching up with me. I intend to find him first.”

“ _So you plan to eliminate him?_ ”

“If I have to.”

Computer's vocal program paused, as if hesitating. “ _Security holocams on Rhen Var recorded little more than dark blurs during the siege. How can you be certain it was this Cin Vhetin who attacked the base?_ ”

“I like to know my competition,” she said with the hint of a scowl. “And I know Vhetin's style. It was him.”

“ _And you wish to dispose of him before he discovers Kassh's coordinates?_ ”

Kalyn nodded slowly. “That, and I need to give my contacts time to check out Durge's intel. I need to be sure he was telling the truth. He was pretty messed-up when I questioned him.”

“ _Concentrated high-heat flame against organic tissue tends to have that effect on meatbag physiology,_ ” Computer observed.

“Yeah. And I don't trust him as far as I can throw him.”

There was a long pause from Computer. Then the mechanical intelligence said, “ _Your sarcasm does not register with my personality coordinators. Please restate._ ”

“Just begin your search, Computer,” Kalyn sighed. “And keep an eye on possible exit burns from a ship with the parameters I stated. Don't let anything get past you.”

“ _I will divert more ship power to my systems in accordance with your orders, mistress. I will also inform you if my search discovers anything, or when my search reaches completion._ ”

“Good,” she said, rising from her chair. “I need to check up on the prisoner. I'll leave you in charge of things up here for a while.”

“ _Very good, mistress_.”

Kalyn climbed down the ladder that lead from the cockpit down to the cargo area. The bulkhead walls were a pale gray-blue when light was shone directly on them, but for now the lights had been dimmed considerably to minimize power output and maximize the ship's stealth capabilities. The large room below housed everything from a mini armory to the ship's cages, one of which was currently occupied.

Trapped within one of the cages, his razor-tipped mechanical arms removed and tucked into a storage crate, sat the neurotic Twi’lek that Kassh called his brother. As Kalyn approached, the Twi'lek was chewing on the bars of his cage, obviously unaware that they were built from a special cortosis-durasteel alloy that could hold back a rocket blast. Organic teeth wouldn't get through it in a thousand years. When he saw the bounty hunter approaching, he shrank against the back wall of the cage and growled at her.

Kalyn had caught the _schutta_ trying to sneak away from the outpost after she'd dealt with Durge. She'd seen him scurrying away, hit him in the back with a stun round, and carted him off to her ship without a second thought. He had a price on his own head ― 5,000 credits for a live capture ― and could provide useful intel as to Kassh's location and his plans.

She'd only had the Twi'lek on her ship for a few hours and already she hated him with all her soul. Killk was rude, barely spoke coherent Basic, and had already stunk up the cages with his excrement. Kalyn had half a mind to shoot him right there and rid the galaxy of yet another pathetic life form.

 _Of all the decent Twi'leks in the galaxy,_ she thought as she approached, _I had to get stuck with the one that has the brain capacity of a spiced-up Ugnaught._

She squatted in front of him, a disgusted scowl crossing her face. “You'd better hope Durge was telling the truth,” she said slowly. “Or you won't live to see another sunrise.”

Killik spat at her. “Kassh not need me. Killing me get nothing for you.”

“On the contrary,” she replied, “I get the satisfaction off ripping your entrails out myself and stringing them around the cockpit like streamers. And since you've refused to talk already...”

Killik gulped and paled to lighter shade of green. But he soon recovered his powers of speech and spat at her again. “Kriff you, lady,” he snapped, wrapping the stumps of his arms around himself to the best of his ability. “Kassh come and save me. He not leave me here.”

“Get used to that cage, then,” Kalyn said, standing fully again and turning back towards the cockpit. “You're going to spend the last hours of your life in there.”

She headed for the ladder, making sure to walk slowly and give the bounty plenty of time to reconsider. She had her boot on the bottom rung when Killik cried, “Wait! Wait!”

She turned ever so slowly, hand resting casually on the butt of her pistol. She wanted to project an air of cold, calculating mercilessness, just in case Killik got defiant again. She had to assert her control over her prisoner or she'd never get any information out of him.

She raised a single thin eyebrow. “Well? Ready to talk?”

Killk scowled, glaring around the room, pointedly looking anywhere but at her. That was a good sign; it meant he was giving in. When he finally met her gaze, he muttered, “I not want to die. And Kassh is a kriffer if ever I see one. Never nice to me, own brother!”

She knelt in front of the cage again. “Tell me what I want to know. Where is Kassh? What kind of firepower does he have at his disposal?”

Killk reached into the pocket of his filthy vest with his stump of an arm, and Kalyn instantly had her pistol in hand, aimed squarely between the Twi'lek's eyes. The alien squeaked, his eyes crossing to keep the barrel of the blaster in sight.

"Keep your stumps where I can see them," she growled, tightening her finger on the trigger.

“It... It... It just.... datacard,” he stammered slowly. He shook his pocket hard, until a tiny, black and blue information chip clattered onto the floor. He gestured to it with one of his stumps. “P-put it in ship drive, and it show where Kassh is. Gave it to me, he did. Said it tell me where to go. Where to meet again.”

“How do I know it isn't going to infect my ship's computer with a virus?” she asked, holstering the pistol with slow caution. “Or send out a tracer signal that your Ultraviolet buddies can track to my location?”

“I not need to be in _more_ trouble,” Killk whimpered pathetically. “That last thing I need.”

Kalyn narrowed her eyes, but relented and reached out to take the chip. But before she could take it, her prisoner suddenly pulled it back.

“Wait,” he said, sounding as if he'd just had an epiphany. Or the closest to an epiphany an idiot like him could get. “I have idea," he squeaked. "I give you location if you give me free!”

“You want me to let you go,” Kalyn clarified, “In return for the datacard. You want me to let you go free?”

He nodded emphatically. Kalyn cocked her head, fighting back the urge to kill the disgusting Twi'lek where he sat.

She _hated_ negotiating with prisoners. It was time-consuming and frustrating; the prisoner usually never settled for anything less than freedom from both imprisonment and repercussions of whatever trouble they would stir up. It was always the same, no matter how insignificant their bargaining chip. They wanted an excuse to continue with their immoral lifestyles, a clean slate so they could go right back to killing, raping, and stealing from anything they could.

Kalyn was not the kind of person to grant such a wish. So she pulled her pistol and pressed it through the bars, aiming squarely between Killk’s eyes.

“I have an idea of my own.” She frowned in mock-thoughtfulness. “How about I deactivate the cage, _take_ the card, and then throw you out of the airlock?”

Killk's eyes were almost as large as her ship's round viewports. His mouth dropped open and his lekku twitched in fear. She rested her hands on her thighs and narrowed her eyes at him, a small smirk tugging at her lips. “Do you know what happens when someone’s tossed out into the vacuum without a space suit?”

He quickly shook his head. She smiled wider. “The temperature creates nitrogen bubbles in your blood and your body swells up like a balloon. Your eyes implode from the pressure, and your lungs _explode_. Your skin burns from all the unfiltered radiation. Your brain loses oxygen, you pass out, and you die.”

She leaned closer. “And that’s all in the first fifteen seconds.”

She didn’t have to say more. Numb with fear, Killk obediently poked the datacard through the bars. She snatched it away before the Twi'lek could change his mind and holstered her blaster, casually heading back to the ladder.

“Hey!” Killk stammered after her. “Hey, you... you let me go now, right? Right?”

“No,” Kalyn said, climbing up the ladder. “Whether your intel is helpful or not, you've still got an acceptable price on your head. That's an opportunity I'm not going to pass up.”

“B-but,” Killk sputtered, “b-but... but...”

She left the Twi'lek to his sputtering, climbed back up the ladder into the cockpit, and settled into her comfortable pilot's seat once more. The door slid shut behind her, thankfully cutting her off from his inane ramblings. After slotting the datacard into the command console, she leaned back and placed her hands behind her head.

The holographic viewscreen of the command console read that the chip was indeed clean of viruses. With a hum, a set of geographical coordinates zoomed down on a holographic map of a dusty beige planet. When it finished, it showed that Kassh's base was situated exactly where Durge had told her.

 _Well,_ she thought, genuinely surprised, _I guess that walking slimeball was telling the truth after all._

She could still hear Killk crying in the cargo hold. She sighed and settled deeper into her chair, cursing inwardly and doing her best to filter out the sound. She was only partially successful.

 _Almost twenty years of dealing with scumbags and murderers,_ she thought with an exhausted sigh. _All of them with some kind of grudge against bounty hunters in general. Most of them trying to kill me, lock me in prison, or trying to shoot my ship down. And that's not even mentioning the other bounty hunters trying to take me out before I can get at their bounty. Like Cin Vhetin is no doubt trying right now._

 _Fierfek_ , she thought, shaking her head and closing her eyes. She felt sleep tug at her senses, lulling her down into slumber. _Sometimes I really hate this job._

_~~~~~~~~~_

**Outlander Nightclub, many years ago**

“So... how exactly are we going to go about this?” Cian Shee said, looking up from the datapad Kalyn was holding out for her. The pad showed the slowly panning cam view of a well-guarded compound that almost looked like a collection of churches.

Kalyn leaned forward on the bar and put her hand under her chin. “I don't exactly know. I'm guessing that we're going to need a couple cubes of K-3 explosive, an armored vehicle of some type... oh, and we're going to have to hire a third man to fill a sniper position.”

Shee pondered over this for a few moments, tapping her chin with one finger. Then she smiled wickedly. “I have just the guy.”

“Oh? Who?”

“A Weequay named Ypalpo,” she said. “He grew up shooting womp rats on Brentaal and eventually became one of the best speed-shooting snipers in the Outer Rim colonies. I’ve worked with him before.”

Kalyn blinked slowly. “Care to run that by me again? _Who_?”

“Ypalpo,” Cian repeated.

“I have no clue how you're able to pronounce that."

“Just call him _Scooter_ ,” Cian giggled. “Everyone else does.”

“I change my mind,” Kalyn said, turning back to the datapad and cutting the video feed. “I like Pyalpo or whatever he's called better. How much does he charge?”

“He's a Weequay,” Cian said, shrugging and sipping at her dark blue drink. “He charges more than he's worth. But we can afford him, don't worry.”

“Are you sure? We can’t afford to screw up. Not on this one.”

Cian sighed and set down her drink, watching as a handsome, leather-clad Twi'lek waiter passed by their seats at the bar. “Kalyn, how long have we been partners?”

“Five years,” the huntress replied instantly. “Ever since I got flushed out of the Kuati Security Force.”

“And how many times have I been wrong about anything? Anything at all?”

“Well there was that time on Bespin, when you said there wouldn't be any karking Jedi so far from the Mid-Rim,” Kalyn said, counting off on her fingers. “And that time on Malastare when you bought that second-hand podracer that you were _absolutely sure_ wouldn't explode the moment we turned it on. And there was that time-”

“Okay, okay,” Cian said, raising her hands in surrender. “So I've made some mistakes. But how many times have I made a _pre-meditated_ mistake?”

“There was that time on-”

Her partner huffed. “ _Fine_. Just... just trust me on _this_ one, okay? Ypalpo will come through. I know he will.”

Cian reached across the bar and squeezed Kalyn’s hand tightly in her own. Her plea was mirrored in her eyes.

Kalyn stared at her partner for a few moments, then relented. “Fine,” she sighed. She didn’t let go of Cian’s hand. “Is he up to the challenge? The Psusan Zealots have a pretty big operation.”

The other woman chuckled. “He’s dealt with shadier characters than the Zealots. I heard he used to work for Black Sun back in the day. Collecting payments that their more idiotic clients refused to pay.”

"Xizor and his Sun lackeys are a leech on the galactic black market," Kalyn said with a scowl. "Nothing like the schemes the Zealots are involved in."

“You two gonna order anything else?” the human bartender interrupted, walking up to their end of the bar. “Cause it's almost closing time and I've got a life too.”

Cian smiled. “One more round, handsome, then we'll be out of your hair. We're just waiting to meet up with someone.”

The bartender nodded and passed them both another tall, dark blue Rancor Crusher, though Kalyn still had a full mug sitting on the bar next to her. Cian loved the drink and ordered it whenever and wherever she could. Kalyn was less enthusiastic.

After sitting in silence for a few moments and scanning the cantina around them, Kalyn leaned over to her partner. “Who, exactly, are we looking for here? You said a Nemoidian?”

“Red eyes and all, yeah. He's got no love for the Zealots, and he's been looking for a way out of their jurisdiction for years. He makes the occasional trip to the Outlander to stock up on information and booze. I figure if we can catch him, we can make him talk.”

Kalyn nodded toward the entrance to the cantina. “Then I hope you’ve got your running shoes on, cause here comes Red-Eyes now.”

A green-skinned Nemoidian swaddled in ragged nerf-leather clothes had just walked in, heading straight for the bar. He paused when he saw the two bounty hunters, staring at them for a moment with wide scarlet eyes. He saw them starting, saw the blasters holstered on their hips. Then he spun on his heel and dashed away, back outside.

Kalyn patted her silver-plated blaster and looked over at her partner.

“He's probably got a speeder out there,” she said. “You up for a high-speed chase?”

Cian shot her a dazzling grin and pushed away from the bar. “Always. Let's go get him, girl.”

~~~~~~~~~

“ _Mistress? Mistress, you must awaken._ _”_

Computer’s soft voice roused Kalyn from her shallow sleep. She slowly opened her eyes, giving them time to adjust to the darkness of the cockpit and the green light thrown by the control panel before her. She looked around the cockpit for a moment, not entirely awake. She could still hear Cian's words, as if her old partner was right in the cockpit with her.

 _Just trust me, okay?_ she'd said.

_Trust me._

_Oh, Cian_ _…_ Kalyn leaned forward in her seat, burying her face in her hands and letting out a long breath. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought, _Trusting you was the worst mistake I_ _’ve ever made._

“ _Mistress?_ ” Computer pressed. “ _I must notify you of present events._ ”

She sat up straighter, checked the control panel for any problems, then snapped back to business mode. Any lingering thoughts of Cian were pushed away, back to that dark part of her mind that only revealed itself in these rare calm moments.

“What is it, Computer?” She ran a low-power diagnostic of the ship's systems.

“ _You ordered me to inform you if I found the ship you are searching for, or when my search time ended._ ”

“And which is it?”

“ _The former,_ ” Computer said. “ _A single Abodel Z390 stealth prototype is currently making its way through Imperial City's orbital defenses. Transponder codes and color schemes match those of your previous search parameters._ ”

She locked the pilot's chair into flight position and took manual control. “Show me where.”

A holographic map of the space surrounding Coruscant – green like the rest of the controls – sprang to life in front of her. A flashing spearhead shape labeled _Void_ was slowly making its way away from the planet and heading for the hyperspace lanes. Kalyn spun up the ship's drives and blasted toward the ship's coordinates. “Give me the fastest intercept course possible.”

“ _Adjust heading point-fourteen degrees starboard and increase engine speed to one hundred-fifteen percent. You will intercept Cin Vhetin's ship within three minutes._ ”

“That's not fast enough.”

“ _Any faster and the Imperials will be alerted to your presence,_ ” Computer pointed out. “ _I would suggest my course of action if you wish to maintain suitable anonymity._ ”

She scowled and followed Computer's advice, tapping in a sequence of codes to release the safeties on the ship's weapons systems and activating the ion cannon mounted beneath the ship's nose. The engines rocketed up to one hundred thirty percent thrust. She was pressing her advantage, but hopefully not so much that nearby Imperial ships would take notice.

After two minutes of tense piloting, the spearhead shape of Vhetin's stealth ship came into view. The faded black-purple color of the ship was difficult to pick out against the starry background of space, which Kalyn assumed came in handy when being followed.

But not this time. She had him right where she wanted him.

She fell into line behind the ship as it cut behind one of the enormous orbital mirrors that regulated Coruscant's weather and sunlight. She hung back far enough that she wouldn't draw the hunter’s attention, biding her time until the ion cannon charged. She waited even as Computer notified her that the cannon was ready to fire. She was waiting for a single moment, that one moment when Vhetin would let his guard down.

After all, when one believes completely that they're in the clear, that there's no way anything can stop them, even the most paranoid being in the galaxy will relax. It was a fact as old as bounty hunting itself.

 _Void_ finally came to a halt and began to rotate, lining up with the hyperspace lane that would no doubt take him back to Mandalore. She hesitated at the sight; why was he leaving? Was he giving up? Or was he heading back to his home planet for reinforcements? In the end it didn't really matter; he had to be taken out either way.

 _Void_ 's engines began to glow blue-white as the hyperdrive came online. Kalyn waited precisely three seconds before saying, “Computer, fire the ion cannon directly when the hyperdrive is engaged. I want your accuracy level set to maximum. Hit him the _moment_ he pushes that lever forward.”

“ _As you wish, mistress. Should I then plot a docking course so you may board his ship?_ ”

“Good guess, Computer.” She pushed away from the command console and slid down the ladder to the cockpit, heading straight for her mini-armory. Killk was still begging for her mercy, but she ignored him as usual. It was easier now that she had a new target in her sights.

She double-checked the sights on her trusty silver-plated pistol, which she slid into the holster on the back of her belt. Then came another backup pistol tucked into the holster on the back of her belt. Next a thin vibroblade was sheathed in her boot. She grabbed twice as many ammo clips for her pistol as usual, storing them in the pouch on her belt, and scooped up a small belt of thermal detonators. She still wondered if that was enough. This was a Mandalorian she was dealing with, after all.

Computer informed her that they were almost ready to open fire. It would have to be enough.

 _Here I come, Vhetin,_ she thought with a deeper scowl as she headed for the airlock. _Ready or not._

_~~~~~~~~_

Vhetin sat back in the pilot's seat, helmet in his lap, letting the autopilot take control while he cleaned the blood from the inside of his helmet with a dry cloth. The blood wasn't coming out easy. It never did.

He'd probably have to swap out the _buy'ce_ for a clean one. He'd need to be at the top of his game to bring Kassh in. Anything short of that, and the Twi'lek would escape yet again.

He set aside the cloth and inspected the inside of his helmet. It was clean enough for the moment and he didn’t have any more time to waste on it; right now, he needed to check on his partner. The internal ship cams had shown her resting quietly in the medbay for the past hour, but a face-to-face checkup never hurt anyone.

His bucket slid back over his head and he left the cockpit, heading back for the small medical facility toward the rear of the ship. When he entered the room, Jay was sitting on the edge of the medical bench with her head head cradled in her hands. She looked up when she heard his heavy boot steps outside.

Vhetin winced inwardly at the sight of his wounded partner. Her face was covered in burns and abrasions, courtesy of Durge's cannon and the shrapnel that accompanied the explosion, and sported a black eye and several deep bites from the kath hounds. She'd heal, of course, and be back to normal in no time – there wouldn't even be any scars – but it was still difficult to look at.

 _She must be in a lot of pain_ , he thought.

“How are you feeling?”

The woman grunted and put her head in her hands again. “Like I've been shot out of a cannon with no padding. My head won’t stop pounding. How about you?”

“Don't worry about me,” he replied, checking the bacta levels in her IV drip. He increased the dosage. Hopefully it would help with the headache. “I'm not the one who almost took an entire turbolaser round in the chest."

She hissed as the bacta hit her system. He knew from experience it was like being injected with ice water. He checked her vitals one more time, then said, “What you did was very brave.”

“I—”

“Stupid,” he clarified, “and reckless. But very brave.”

She let out a weak, watery chuckle, then winced and held her ribs. “Ah, don’t make me laugh. I feel like I’m one foot in the grave as it is.”

He stepped closer. “Here. Let me see.”

He touched her chin and gently moved her face from side to side, inspecting the severity of her wounds with his helmet scanners. She had some first-degree burns as well as some cuts and bruises. A rib was cracked on her right side and her shoulder had almost been dislocated when she hit the ground. But it was nothing a few hours of bacta treatment and a good night’s sleep couldn’t fix.

“You should count yourself lucky,” he said as he stepped back. He moved to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, then thought better of it and settled for a nod. “Durge takes personal pride in his marksmanship. A half-foot to the left and you wouldn’t have a face left to heal up.”

Jay rubbed her eyes and winced as her fingers grazed against her raw skin. Then she lay gingerly back against the med bay cot with a weary sigh and laced her fingers over her stomach. “So where are we?”

“Heading away from Coruscant. I was just checking in before we left.”

“Thoughtful of you,” she said. She almost smiled at him before an alarmed look invaded her features. “Wait. We're not giving up, are we?”

He shook his head. “No. We just need to get back to Mandalore and find a new place to start our hunt. Restocking on supplies and ammo wouldn’t hurt either.”

“Why not go back to Sekha? She gave us the information we needed before.”

“I'd rather not push our luck with her. She'd probably just make us deal with another of her bounties anyway.”

“You… have a point.”

“I'm going to do a little research on big MUV movements over the past few weeks. We can maybe pin down Kassh’s territories and find out where his gang operates besides Coruscant. That might give us somewhere to start.”

“I’ll defer to your judgment, I guess.” She rested her hands behind her head with a wince. “And I’ll try not to get shot next time.”

“You did well back there, Jay.” He turned away with a small smile, hidden behind the visor of his helmet. “Get some rest and I'll check back with you when we reach the Mandalore system.”

He was halfway to the door when her voice drew him back. “Hey Vhetin?”

He turned back to her to find her frowning, staring up at the ceiling. When she met his gaze, there was a thoughtful look in her eyes.

“Kalyn Farnmir,” she said. “Is it possible she has the information we're looking for?”

“It's possible, I guess.” He had reasoned along similar lines not long ago. “It's possible that she attacked Durge before we ever got there.”

“And that's why he wasn't in the mood to talk to us when he found us.”

He nodded, still thinking. “We should still stop back at Mandalore to restock on weapons and supplies, but going after her is far from a bad idea.”

“Well I'm here to help,” she replied. She sighed and closed her eyes, no doubt settling in for a well-deserved rest. “Let me know if anyone else tries to kill us.”

“Will do. For now, focus on recuperating. I’ll be back soon.” He nodded to her again and stepped out the door. The medbay sealed behind him, cutting his partner off from view as it locked her securely within, safe from any harmful contagions outside.

Vhetin stared at his boots as they carried him back to the cockpit, frowning thoughtfully. Kalyn Farnmir… strange how things suddenly kept coming back to her. If she really did manage to wring information from Durge, then she knew exactly where Kassh was. At the very least, she would have a fresher lead than any he and Jay had at their disposal.

He settled himself back into the pilot's seat and ran a quick diagnostic of the nav computer. The report said that they were almost ready to jump to hyperspace. It would just take a few moments for the computer to get the ship aligned with the proper hyperspace coordinates.

 _Maybe Tarron will have some new intel for us too,_ he thought. _And if we_ _’re not alone on this hunt any more, maybe it’s time to bring in some extra hands. Force knows Brianna would probably want in on the fun._

Either way, their next destination was clear: Mandalore. The navicomputer’s completion tone buzzed and he pushed the activation lever forward. The ship lurched and began to accelerate, the hyperdrive letting out a building whine as it began to charge—

Then everything went to hell.

 _Void_ ’s diagnostic had claimed there was nothing out of place. But the moment he pushed the lever forward there was a massive crackling explosion from the rear of the ship. The deck jerked like they’d been hit by an out-of-control asteroid. Vhetin was thrown against the command console and the ship went careening through space, spinning wildly. The space beyond the front viewport whirled in dizzying arcs.

“Damn it!” he shouted, grasping frantically at the flight yoke. The ship's lights flickered, and the control console sparked and went dark. Another explosion sent the ship rocketing in the other direction. He was smashed into the console opposite him now, bounced off the gunner’s seat, and slammed hard to the floor. He cursed again and threw himself back into the pilot’s seat. The control stick was tense and unresponsive, and he struggled to regain control as a shrill whooping siren rang through the entirety of the ship.

He wrenched the controls and punched in an emergency override sequence. _Void_ trembled violently and began to level out, the siren silenced. He let out a short breath, not letting himself relax just yet.

Sure enough, another explosion tossed him against the front console. The next second, ship-wide power flickered and died. The joystick went slack in his hands and every shipwide system shut down in the blink of an eye. They were left floating aimlessly through space, the stars drifting sluggishly past the front viewport.

 _Void_ was disabled. Defenseless.

The door slid open and Jay staggered into the cockpit. Her hair was wildly disheveled and she had a fresh bruise on her forehead; the ship’s rocking had obviously thrown her into something. Her voice was harsh and tense as she cried, “What the hell is going on?”

“Ion cannon,” he snarled. He frantically hit every emergency function he could remember, but the controls remained dark. Power was out, and only time would restore it. “We're under attack!”

She slid into the gunner's seat with a pained groan and tapped at the controls. There was no response for her either; the console stayed dim. She slapped the side of the monitor and snapped, “Shit. Power's out!”

A nearby readout panel exploded, sending a bright spray of sparks into Vhetin's face. He raised his arm to block his eyes, then punched his fist hard against the ship’s flight board. “Yeah, I picked up on that.”

“Who's shooting at us?”

 _Void_ suddenly ground to a halt, hard enough that it threw the both of them forward in their seats. A loud rumble echoed through the ship and the space outside glowed with an eerie green light.

“Tractor beam,” Jay said, staring at the light. Vhetin returned to the captain’s seat and tapped at a nearby keypad, furiously trying to reengage the ship's power core.

The green light quickly faded and was replaced by the booming, clanking sound of two ship's docking clamps fastening onto each other. Both he and Jay looked up at the ceiling as the bulkheads shook all around. They heard a few more clanking booms, then everything was still and silent.

“Kriff,” Jay muttered. “Someone's trying to board us.”

“Bad choice on their part.” Vhetin shoved away from the console and moved to the hall outside, motioning for Jay to follow him. She hauled herself out of the chair and limped after him, wincing with every step.

Vhetin headed for the armory, taking a single step into the room and grabbing everything within reach. Two MandalMotors-issue pistols and his lightsabers were transferred to the various holsters on his belts. He tossed Jay a few tibanna cartridges for her own pistol – which she caught carefully – before grabbing a nearby rifle and his saber pike.

“Get back to the med bay,” he told her as he armed up. “Seal the door and don't come out until I tell you.”

“What?” she said. She shook her head vehemently. “No way am I leaving you alone with this maniac. I'm heading up to the docking bay with you!”

“Not when you’re in such a vulnerable state,” he replied. “You aren't going to hold up long in a firefight and I’m not going to risk you getting hurt.”

“But -”

“Don't argue!” Vhetin snapped as another rumble shook the ship. He slung his rifle over his shoulder. “We don't have much time. Just do it.”

She scowled at him, but there was wisdom in his words. She was in no shape to fight and she knew it. She obviously wasn’t happy about it, but she nodded and limped off to the medical bay without further protest. The door slid closed and locked behind her.

Vhetin went the opposite direction, further down the hall and into the docking ring airlock. The docking ring protruded from the wall some distance, jutting out like drain pipe into the small room outside. It wasn't hard to squeeze into the small space beside the ring, where he would be almost completely concealed from any boarders. It was a tight fit, but his only chance to take their attacker from behind, where they least expected it.

He just barely pressed into place next to the ring when the docking port irised open with a metallic screech of scraping durasteel. There was silence for a moment. Then he heard slow, cautious bootsteps on the bulkhead. A heartbeat later someone crept into view and he activated his HUD's audio/video pickup to record their attacker.

The boarder was a single human female, of medium height and build with her hair shaved down to stubble. She was wearing form-fitting black body armor, had a single elbow-length black glove adorning her right arm, and carried a silver-plated pistol in her hand. Her appearance was unmistakable.

_I guess Kalyn Farnmir wasn't far behind us after all_ _…_

He would have preferred engaging her on his own terms. He would have preferred time to plan and prepare for an attack. Hell, even five minutes’ advanced warning would have been nice. But even denied such an advantage, he still had the element of surprise.

He slowly crept out from his hiding space, putting as little weight as possible on his toes to muffle the sounds of his bootsteps. He was only partially successful; hopefully, the sound of the ship's ion drive would help to cover up the noise. He inched up behind the hostile woman, raising his deactivated saber pike over his shoulder. A quick blow to the head would stun her, maybe knock her unconscious. He'd restrain her without further conflict and then he'd finally be able to get some answers.

Fate, it seemed, preferred he do things the hard way.

She somehow anticipated the attack, spinning and catching the hard staff before the attack could land. Vhetin grunted in surprise as his attack was halted with jarring force. She wrenched the weapon aside, out of the way, and drove an armored elbow into Vhetin's faceplate before he could move to defend himself. The blow hit home with a sharp _crack_ of metal on metal. He was forced back a few steps by the force of the attack. His pike hit the floor and rolled away out of reach.

Farnmir raised her silver-plated pistol and aimed at his unarmored neck, her eyes narrowed dangerously. She was aiming to kill and they both knew it.

Instinct kicked in; he dropped, kicking out with one foot and managing to hook his boot around her ankles. She hit the floor hard with a surprised grunt and her pistol discharged with a _snap_ against the wall, creating a small pop of sparks that danced across the hard grated floor.

He moved forward to press the attack, reaching for his rifle as he did. But his opponent wasn’t out of the fight just yet. She drove her boot heel into his gut hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs, even through his armor. As he doubled over she raked her foot upward, catching him in the chin and making his teeth slap together with a jarring _clack_. He fell back against the opposite wall, disoriented and in pain.

Farnmir nimbly flipped back up to her feet, scooping her weapon back into her hands and swiveling to bring him into view. Vhetin tensed and raised his rifle. They both froze, their weapons trained on each other's head. Neither fired. They just stood there, frozen in place, weapons raised and unmoving. Within seconds, the fight was over.

Silence reigned for an uncomfortably long time. Farnmir broke the silence first.

“You seriously thought,” she snarled, breathing hard, “that I wouldn't hear a fully-armored Mandalorian trying to sneak up behind me? What kind of idiot do you take me for?”

He narrowed his eyes and his HUD automatically zoomed in on the woman's scowling face. His targeting reticle centered on her forehead and flashed red to indicate a good shot. All he had to do was squeeze the firing stud a little more...

“Don't even think about it,” Farnmir said as if she could read his mind. “You kill me and we both die.”

“Small arms fire isn't effective against my armor,” he replied, pointedly making sure his helmet was tilted down to protect his unarmored neck from incoming fire. “So unless you're secretly packing a disintegrator...”

“Come on.” She shot him a feral grin and raised her left hand. “I'm no newcomer to this business. I did better.”

A small, round thermal detonator was clasped in her hand, quietly beeping and flashing a tiny red light; both signs that the grenade was armed and counting down. They would only have a minute at the most before the thing exploded, and even in full _beskar'gam_ there was no way Vhetin could survive such a blast. When he looked closer, he also saw that there was a small ring hooked around her thumb.

A kill switch. If her finger came off the det's trigger and pulled that ring from the grenade, it would instantly explode.

Farnmir flexed her fingers over the retracted activation cap, making the kill switch shake dangerously. She glanced at it, then back to Vhetin with a triumphant smirk. “Unless you want to meet your maker earlier than anticipated,” she pressed, “I suggest you lower your weapon.”

Vhetin didn't move. He wasn't about to fall for the ploy. If he lowered his weapons she would shoot him there and deactivate the bomb. It was a lesson even the most rookie hunter knew well: never grant control of a standoff to your enemy. So he gave her a single terse shake of his head. “No deal.”

“Fine, you want a sign of good faith?” She suddenly holstered her silver-plated pistol, then raised her free hand in surrender. “I'll lower mine first. But if you shoot me and my finger comes off this trigger, the det goes of instantly. Even if you aren’t killed outright, the explosion will still vaporize this room and send us both flying off into the void.”

Vhetin stared at her for a long moment, seriously considering shooting her anyway. But reason, as always, won out over bravado. He cursed quietly and lowered his gun. “What do you want? I doubt you came here to wish me luck on my hunt.”

Farnmir carefully extricated her thumb from the kill switch and retracted the detonator's activation cap, safely deactivating the explosive. Once the det was defused, she clipped it back to its place on her belt.

“I warned you to stay away from Kassh,” she said as she worked. “I warned you of the consequences if you continued to interfere.”

“I don’t take kindly to death threats. If I ran away and hid every time someone threatened to kill me, I wouldn't be able to leave Mandalore.”

She nodded, looking reluctantly impressed. “All right, I’ll give you that one. But I'm not going to let you take Kassh in. I happen to-”

“I know all about your history with Kassh,” Vhetin interrupted. “And quite frankly, I don't care. I got first word of the bounty, I risked life and limb to gather information on him, and I'm the one who had to kick Durge's ass to investigate his base.”

She scoffed. “A base where I had already eliminated the perimeter defenses, lured away Kassh's guards, _and_ dealt with Durge first. Even with your big, bad Mandalorian attitude, _I_ get the points for that one.”

“So why are you attacking us?” Vhetin snapped, folding his arms across his chest. “If you've already taken Kassh in, why-”

“You really think I have Kassh? You think that I was any more successful dealing with Durge than you were?” Farnmir scoffed. “Have you _met_ that guy?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Kassh wasn't at the base when I got there,” she snapped. She rested her hands on her hips and cocked her head to one side, raising a sharp eyebrow in challenge. “He'd left hours before I even arrived in-system.”

Vhetin absorbed the new information quickly and without response. Kassh was still on the loose? If so, he and Jay still had a chance to salvage something from this. If they could just track down where he went...

His gaze slowly traveled back to Farnmir, glaring at her through his helmet’s tinted T-visor. “So what happens now?”

She shrugged. “My original plan was to sneak aboard, kill you before you had the chance to defend yourself, then head off on my own free of any more competition. Maybe steal some of your equipment along the way. But you've karked up that plan, haven't you?”

“You know where Kassh is?”

“I managed to wring it out of Durge when I brought him down.”

He didn’t back down just yet, his gaze lingering on her holstered pistol. A tiny weapon like that wouldn't be near enough firepower to even make the Gen'dai flinch. His tone was cold and skeptical as he said, “ _You_ took Durge down? How?”

She grinned again with that same hard, wild expression as before. “I exploited the biggest physical weakness that almost every male in this galaxy possesses. And I used a concussion grenade and a flamethrower to get the job done. You really want me to go into further detail?”

Vhetin, despite himself, chuckled. “Wow. No wonder he wasn’t in the mood to talk.”

Things were slowly starting to fall together. Kalyn obviously wasn’t lying to him, despite her less-than-friendly introduction. And if there was a chance he could manage to salvage something from this…

“Look,” he eventually said, leaning against the wall and folding his arms. “I don't want to kill you. I've got a wounded partner, a dead-end hunt, and now a disabled ship. I've got more important things to do than engage in a duel to the death with a fellow bounty hunter.”

“Wise choice.”

“And I'm sure _you_ don't want to waste the time and ammunition it would take to kill _me_ ,” he continued. “We both have bigger aiwhas to fry here, so it doesn't make sense to turn on each other.”

She thought over this, then eventually nodded again. “It would be smarter for me to set out right now. I've already wasted enough time tracking you down. But I warned you-”

“Kriff what you warned me,” he interrupted. “Even split three ways, Kassh's bounty is more than adequate.”

She paused, staring at him with a newfound frown. She folded her arms and snorted in disbelief. “You’re suggesting we work _together?_ Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve had more than my fair share of backstabbing for one lifetime.”

“We've each got something the other needs," Vhetin pointed out. "You have Kassh's location and my partner and I will just be that much more firepower on your side."

"I can handle myself. Kassh won’t stand a chance against me."

"Then you're a fool," he snapped. "Kassh isn't going to fall back to the middle of nowhere. Now that he knows we’re after him, he's going to head back to familiar territory. Well-defended, _fortified_ territory. The fact that he didn’t take Durge with him only proves it."

He pushed off the wall and took a step toward her. Her hand instinctively traveled to the butt of her pistol.

“Kassh knows we’re after him,” he repeated. “He knows that we both have the means and motivation to cause him quite a bit of grief. The odds are in our favor, not his.”

She scowled at him, but he continued, “So he’s going to fall back to a place where he’s strong and set himself up for the endgame, with his back against the wall. That means more guns, more guards, and more chances for you to kriff it all up. We stand a better chance of bringing him down if we work together.”

Her jaw tightened and her brows knitted furiously. She obviously didn’t like what he had to say, but there was no denying the truth in his words. It was clear she was no rookie to this business, and she had to know a good idea when she heard one.

"I… see your point," she eventually admitted. "But you're an idiot of you think I'm going to trust you just because you have bigger guns than me."

"I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm suggesting that we work together so we can provide each other fire support. Make sure Kassh is brought to justice, once and for all."

"And if I refuse?"

Vhetin didn’t shift from his position leaning against the wall, but his tone grew positively icy. "Then you might as well get that detonator back out.”

She scowled, if possible, even deeper. She glared at him, then turned her back and ran a hand over the stubble on her head, no doubt weighing the options before her. After a few tense moments she sighed explosively, turned back to him, and threw her hands up in defeat.

“Fine! Fine,” she snapped. “I don't like it, but you’re right. We'll have to work together for now. It’s the best way to guarantee we get this done. It’s total bullshit, but it’s true.”

“I'm not exactly thrilled about it myself,” Vhetin pointed out. “But it's infinitely preferable to the alternative. I have your word you won't shoot us in the back the first chance you get?”

She heaved a sigh. “Do you need to spoil _all_ my fun?”

“Swear it.”

She rolled her eyes. “ _Fine_. I promise I won't shoot you in the back when all this is done. I swear it on the almighty hunt gods or whatever you Mandos believe in.”

He grunted, satisfied. “Fine. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an injured partner I need to check up on.”

She turned back to the docking ring and her own ship, looking all too eager to put distance between them. “I'll transmit the coordinates to your ship when you have power again. And I have _your_ word that you won't take the coordinates and shoot off to get Kassh on your own?”

“Like I said, I've got bigger problems right now. And I'm usually a pretty straightforward guy. Scheming and plotting just makes my head hurt.”

“Honesty…” Farnmir paused. “I admire that in man. I like it even more in a fellow bounty hunter.”

He didn't reply. He just left the room and sealed the door behind him, just in case she got any funny ideas. He may have agreed to work with her for a time, but that didn't mean he trusted her. In fact, it was just the opposite; she had already proved herself to be cunning, volatile, and more than ready to fight. Those were all qualities that made Vhetin nervous.

There was a loud rumble as Farnmir's ship began to lift away from _Void,_ swiftly followed by a loud _clank_ as the docking clamp released. Vhetin felt the ship slowly begin to drift through space once more. The power core was still offline, then.

He knocked on the door the med bay. Three sharp raps, then two more after a short pause; it was an all-clear signal he'd taught Jay early on in her training. Anyone trying to impersonate him wouldn't know the signal and would therefore reveal himself.

The door instantly sheathed open and Jay stuck her head out. She glanced up and down the hall, her pistol clutched tightly in her hand.

“Is she dead yet?” she asked.

“Worse,” Vhetin replied, stepping back to allow his partner to limp out of the room. She was already walking better and most of the burns on her face and hands were healing up nicely. “We’re going to be working together.”

Jay’s eyes widened in disbelief. “ _What_?”

She followed him to the armory. As he returned his weapons to their assigned locations, he explained the situation. “She has Kassh's location. His _real_ location. She's agreed to work with us as long as she gets a cut of the reward.”

“I don't believe it,” his partner said. “After she went through all the trouble to keep us away? It sounds suspicious.”

“I didn't believe her either,” he admitted, resting his pike back onto its designated grav-hooks on the wall. “But it's not like we have any other choice. We’re dead in the water without her.”

She frowned and replaced her borrowed pistol. “How did you get her to agree to work with us?”

“Let’s call it…” he hesitated. “Let’s call it aggressive negotiations.”

She snorted. “I'll bet. What did you do, hit her over the head then tell her that you just want to be friends?”

“I tried,” he admitted. “But it didn't quite work out that way. She seemed content to hold up her end of the bargain as long as we don't try and knock her out of the picture. I'm going to uphold my end and not try and kill her again.”

“You did exclude me from that arrangement, right?” Jay said with a scowl. She gestured at the burns on her arms and face. They were fading quickly, but still visible. “It's her fault that I was hurt. She had already pissed Durge off badly enough that he had to take it out on _somebody_. And don't even get me started on the damn kath hounds.”

They both headed back to the cockpit. Just outside, they could see Farnmir’s thin, angular ship darting forward through space. Its engines glowed bright emerald green as it headed for the hyperspace exit.

Vhetin settled into the pilot’s seat. The lights flickered and warmed around them as the effects of Farnmir’s ion barrage finally wore off and power was restored. He sighed in relief and took the joystick, guiding his ship after Farnmir’s. Her saber-shaped ship sliced through space ahead of them, heading for the nearest hyperspace exit zone.

“Because of her,” he said, “we didn't have to sneak past the patrols, guards, and turrets _as well_ as Durge and the kath hounds. You should be thankful.”

“What do you think would be appropriate thanks? Five blocks of lit baradium charges?”

He was about to retort when the comm sputtered.

“ _Come in_ Void,” Farnmir said over the transmission channel. “ _Prepare to receive mission-critical coordinates. Transmitting now._ ”

“Copy that, uh...” Vhetin paused, then said, “What exactly is your ship's name, Farnmir? Your transponder reads-”

“ _The transponder's spot on, Vhetin_ ,” she interrupted. “ _The ship's name is_ Tough Luck _._ ”

“Okay,” Jay grudgingly muttered from the copilot’s seat, “I have to admit I like that.”

“ _Follow me, and don't fall behind. I'm not stopping, and I'm not waiting for you rookies._ ”

“'Rookies?'” Jay and Vhetin said simultaneously, frowning at each other.

Then the _Tough Luck_ shot forward and jumped away to hyperspace. Jay let out a breath as Vhetin synced up the navicomputer. “I can see that this is going to be a wonderful partnership,” she muttered. “Where do the coordinates lead, anyway?”

“Uh, it looks like the outskirts of Anchorhead, Tatooine,” Vhetin replied as he consulted the navicomputer. He sighed and sat back in his seat with a grunted curse. “Of course. I should have known he’d end up there sooner or later.”

“Tatooine? Never heard of it.”

“It’s a backwater desert world on the edge of the Outer Rim. A haven for pirates, smugglers, and other scum.” he sighed. “That's going to make things a little more difficult.”

“Why?”

He was glad his helmet masked the pained look on his face. “Let's just say I caused some problems the last time I was there. Don’t expect a warm welcome.”

“No problem.” Jay rolled her eyes. “Between being shot at, mauled, and nearly blown up, I'm starting to expect everyone wants to kill me on sight.”

Vhetin said nothing more as he pushed forward the activation lever. The stars blurred to streaks, and this time there was no explosion or ion barrage. With a high-pitched whine, the hyperdrive activated and _Void_ erupted into hyperspace, following their former enemy’s ship into the unknown.


	5. Through the Streets

**Anchorhead, Tatooine**

Jay could almost feel the heat of the desert through _Void's_ bulkheads. It was the scenery that surrounded them that was to blame; the swirling sands baked by the planet's twin suns, the shimmering heat waves that broke up the horizon, and especially the empty blue sky, devoid of any clouds offering respite from the blazing twin suns. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, feeling the slightest sheen of sweat beading her skin even from her place in the ship’s cockpit.

As _Void_ coasted down over the seemingly endless desert that covered almost all of Tatooine's surface, Vhetin dialed out a hailing code for Mandalore. Brianna's comlink, as a matter of fact.

“So let me get this straight,” Jay said as _Void_ breasted a sand dune taller than a skyscraper. “Brianna has a _base_ here?”

On the horizon was a sprawling collection of dirty, haphazard-looking mud brick buildings. It was the first settlement Jay had seen since entering atmosphere that could pass as a “city,” but it still looked like nothing but a tiny smuggler’s haven. As it drew closer, however, she realized that it was actually a veritable metropolis of life. Transport ships flitted to and from the city like flies, and she could see crowds of people passing below. Caravans trundled along pathways carved through the sand dunes, the outbound merchants riding great shaggy, horned beasts that plodded through the sand with dumb, determined sluggishness. She even saw a few TIE fighters coasting over the buildings, though it looked like the Imperial presence here was almost nonexistent.

She’d read up on Tatooine during their trip through hyperspace. Apparently the majority of the local economy depended on using mechanical engineering to draw water from deep under the ground — a process called _moisture farming_. A recent Imperial geological survey had found that Anchorhead rested above a vast underground lake that provided the residents with a near-endless supply of life-giving water. Because of this blessing, it was only natural that Anchorhead was one of the largest trading posts and moisture farming stations on the planet, rivaled only by Mos Eisley to the north.

“Brianna used to maintain a safehouse here,” Vhetin explained. With careful, measured commands he guided the ship down into a spaceport on the outskirts of the city. “A few years ago, she and I helped start a militia group in Anchorhead to keep the local troublemakers in check.”

“ _You_ started a militia? I hope you asked for overtime pay.”

“It was part of the contract we accepted. Anchorhead used to be major gang turf. Our mission was to break up the gangs.”

“And might that have something to do with the fact you're not well-liked here?” she inquired, gripping the back of the pilot's seat. The deck jumped beneath her feet as the ship settled into its landing struts.

“Let’s just say that I was... not as helpful as she was.” He sighed and powered down the engines. “The point is that these guys owe her. And, to a lesser extent, me. We need to call in a few of those favors.”

“I'd ask her permission first to make sure she's comfortable with that. She might want to use those favors herself, you know.”

“That's exactly what I'm about to do.” He triggered the holoprojector. “Brianna. It's Cin. Come in.”

The radio cut out and a blue-white hologram of Brianna flashed to life above the command console. It was a half-sized holo of the woman’s head and shoulders that faded into oblivion at her waist.

“ _Hey you_ ,” she said with a small smile at Vhetin. The hologram warped and sputtered, then resolved into a sharper image. “ _Nice to finally hear from your end. The hunt is going well, I hope?_ ”

“It’s holding steady.” The Mandalorian sat back in his seat. “The hunt’s taken us to Anchorhead, Tatooine of all places. We're closing in on Kassh, but I need some information.”

“ _And you think that I can provide better intel than Tarron?_ _”_ The Coruscanti woman laughed. _“He's been digging through Imperial files like a bloody kolo mole for the past few hours. He won't even stop to eat. I have to admire his dedication._ ”

“He likes to earn his finders’ fees,” Vhetin said. “But unfortunately this isn't about Kassh. I need help from your contacts in Anchorhead. Need to call in a few old favors.”

Brianna’s laugh faded, replaced by calmer, wary caution. “ _Cin, I don't think they_ _’ll be in the mood to talk to you. Not after the last time you met up with them._ ”

“I don't doubt it. But I don't have time to play at being their friend. Do you know where the militia set up their new base of operations?”

 _“You mean after you blew up the old one?_ ”

Jay raised an eyebrow and glanced at Vhetin for an explanation. He shook his head and muttered, “Another time,” then turned back to Brianna's holo. “It’s important that I find Massano.”

“ _You know him._ _”_ Brianna shrugged. _“He's not one to stay in one place for long. Jabba the Hutt has been gunning for him and the rest of the militia for years now. Ever since we left._ ”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to reach out to this guy?” Jay asked. “Seeing as how we're technically working for Jabba now?”

Brianna's holo turned to her and smiled. “ _And how're you holding up, Rookie? All this is a bit different from sparring in Rame_ _’s backard, I wager._ ”

“Honestly?” Jay shook her head. “I'm barely keeping up with everything here. Vhetin’s the only one who seems to actually understand what’s going on. The rest moves too fast for me to keep up.”

“ _Just give it your best_ ,” Brianna reassured her. “ _And you'll-_ ”

“I hate to interrupt,” Vhetin interrupted, “but we need this information quickly. If Kassh is dug in here, we're not going to be able to take him down with only three people. The sooner we find Massano and the militia, the better.”

The holo stuttered as Brianna folded her arms across her chest. Her blue-white face flickered with static as she frowned at him. “ _Three people? Who else is there?_ ”

“Uh...” Vhetin hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. “Kalyn Farnmir.”

“ _Kark it all, Cin. You just can't help yourself, can you? You've never been able to just grit your teeth and pull the trigger._ ”

“The situation was… a little more complicated than that.”

Brianna shrugged and rested her hands on her hips. “ _Okay Stripes. I'll give you the info you need. But I won_ _’t be held responsible for what Quoren Massano does to you when you show up on his doorstep._ ”

“Let us worry about that,” Jay said. “I think we can handle it. I _hope_ we can handle it.”

“ _If you say so_ ,” the huntress said. “ _Transmitting his coordinates now. Oh, and try not to piss him off too badly. You might hate him, but Quoren_ _’s still a friend of mine._ ”

The coordinates scrolled across a readout on the control console, zooming in on a crowded urban area of southern Anchorhead. Vhetin checked the coordinates and nodded. “Sounds good. Thanks, Bri, we'll get on it.”

“ _Good. I'll be waiting for your return call. Bellan out._ ”

Her hologram sputtered out and the holotransmitter powered down with a low whine. Vhetin clapped his hands as he stood and headed for the exit ramp. “Okay. Let's pass this info on to Kalyn and take things from there.”

Jay followed close behind. “Sounds good to me. But just who is this Massano guy you two mentioned?”

“I'll fill you in on the way.”

Together, they stepped out into the blistering heat of Tatooine's desert and Jay was instantly enveloped in a wave of sizzling desert air. She cursed under her breath as her vision went white and she was forced to narrow her eyes to the tiniest slits as her vision adjusted to the blinding light from the planet's twin suns. She could only barely make out the blurry form of Farnmir's ship, the _Tough Luck_ , gliding down next to them and kicking up a roiling cloud of dust and sand as it did. It was only a few moments before Farnmir herself was heading toward them, buckling a tactical datapad over the elbow-length glove on her right arm.

“What's the holdup?” she asked, as if she could read their minds. “You two know something I don’t?”

“We're going to see if we can find some help,” Jay explained at Vhetin’s prompting. “If Kassh has a base here, we're not going to get in there on our own.”

Kalyn narrowed her eyes. “Splitting the reward between even more people?”

“I've got an ace up my sleeve,” Vhetin said. “The guys I want to talk with won't want the money. If I know them, they'll just want Kassh out of here.”

“Good Samaritans? Fine by me.” Farnmir nodded, satisfied. “I'm going to scout out Durge’s coordinates and see just how prepared our quarry is. I'll contact you as soon as I know anything.”

“Wait.” Jay stopped her before she could get too far away. “How do we know you won't just try and go after Kassh without us and claim the reward on your own?”

Farnmir let out a short laugh. “I may be good at my job, Rookie, but I'm not stupid. Charging in with no intel against unknown security forces is not my idea of a smart move.

“Besides,” she added with a crooked smirk. “I gave you my word.”

She turned away without another word and stepped through the archway that led out to the busy street, where large cargo speeders were flashing by. She looked up and down the street, then vanished into the city.

The two remaining hunters set to their task at a more sedate pace, setting off into the city at a walk. As they left the spaceport, Jay glanced over at her partner with a determined glint in her eyes. She cocked her head, a sure sign that her curiosity was once again gnawing at her.

“So…” she began. “What exactly happened between you and the local militia?”

“Ah, well,” he fidgeted. “A long time ago I... well, I kind of inconvenienced the local militia leader, Quoren Massano, and blew up one of their safe houses. A cantina, actually. It was only later that I found out that the cantina was also their local headquarters.”

“Uh-huh,” Jay said, taking in the information and nodding slowly. “And when you say you _inconvenienced_ this militia leader, you mean—”

“My previous partner and I beat him to a pulp and shot him in the chest,” Vhetin replied tersely. “He spent a week in a medcenter. We also killed one of the militia’s protectees and caused about a hundred thousand credits’ worth of damage to the city.”

“Ah.” Jay nodded, not even looking surprised. “So that’s why you said not to expect a warm welcome.”

The Mandalorian nodded. “I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t shoot us on sight.”

“Well let’s just hope he reserves his righteous indignation for you alone,” she said, pulling a face. “ _I_ didn’t blow up his safe house.”

“That kind of thinking doesn’t really stick out here. You’re guilty by association, I’m afraid.”

She rolled her eyes. “Great. I suddenly feel so blessed to be your partner.”

They walked on in silence for a few minutes, crossing a street bustling with all manner of human and alien life. Round-topped stone buildings surrounded them, dusty and dirty like everything else in the city. Ragged-looking moisture farmers wandered through the streets, followed by spindly-legged eopies laden with bags of scrap. Decorative flags and drapes – a few surprisingly sporting Mandalorian clan sigils – were draped across the streets.

Jay frowned at the crowd, realizing that Kassh had chosen his hiding place well. Finding a single person in the mess would be a daunting task even for the most skilled of mercenaries. Everything from shabby-looking drifters to heavily-armed thugs crowded the walkways. Jay even spotted a few Mandalorians among the crowd, though they offered Vhetin no greetings or signs of recognition. Here, he was just another hunter — a neutral compatriot at best, a dangerous rival at worst.

But the most notable Anchorhead citizens by far were the little hooded Jawas that scurried back and forth through the alleys and sandy walkways with short, jerky motions. She wasn’t familiar with Tatooine, but she’d heard of the creatures during her days as a fighter pilot. Her friend Oppan had seemed to  hate them with a passion usually reserved only for pirates and shipboard equipment malfunctions.

“Vermin,” he’d said during one of his rare moments of vocalization. “They’d steal a moisture evaporator from a man dying of dehydration. The buggers should be exterminated.”

He’d always been quiet, so his short tirade against the Jawas had stuck in her head. She didn’t know if he’d been telling the truth, but she did know that something about the little beings gave her the creeps; their hooded faces, glittering eyes, and hushed, jittering speech sent shivers down her spine. Yet she and her partner had barely stepped out onto the streets before the little hooded aliens flocked toward them like hawkbats around carrion, squawking and

ing excitedly.

They weren’t interested in Jay. In fact, most barely shot her a second glance. Their attention was focused solely — raptly even — on the Mandalorian at her side. Vhetin was a veritable walking death machine, carrying more mechanical equipment and weapons than most beings knew was possible. The Jawas seemed almost magnetically drawn to his gear, pawing at his belt and chattering excitedly as they pointed at his jetpack.

Jay hid a smile as she thought, _if they_ _’re mechanical thieves, Vhetin must be something close to a god to them._

“Get away from me.” The bounty hunter huffed in irritation and brushed the short aliens aside, nudging their tiny hands away from his kneepads and the expensive rocket dart projectors mounted there. He then nudged another away with the tip of one shoe, sending the creature scampering away from where it had been trying to unlace his hefty combat boots. “Go on. _Usen_ _’ye, usen’ye!_ ”

The little beings scampered away to hide behind a nearby waste bin, where they poked their heads out and stared at him from a distance with glittering eyes, whispering to each other. As soon as Vhetin turned his back, they scampered out to follow after him — from a safe distance this time.

“Looks like you’ve made some friends already,” Jay said with a barely-hidden grin.

“Little runts.” Vhetin shook his head with an irritated growl as the Jawas continued to chatter and gibber behind them. “The last time I stopped by Tatooine, they stripped _Void_ of almost all her external sensory equipment. They took something close to a thousand credits of mechanical scanners.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And you just parked your ship here again?”

“No.” He shook his head and she heard a tone of grim amusement in his voice. “Now I have a pressure-triggered electro-repulsor that spans the ship. Once _Void_ is locked down, anyone who tries to break into her gets a three-thousand teratoll surprise.”

“A teratoll?” Jay asked, unfamiliar with the term.

“Let’s just say any would-be intruder wouldn’t be alive long enough for their nerves to feel the the shock.”

Jay winced. “Ouch. Remind me never to go anywhere near your ship while you’re not there.”

He adjusted his belt pouches and tossed a final glare at the Jawa posse still following them. “That would probably be smart.”

They took side roads and alleys and tried their best to avoid other civilians — they even managed to lose their Jawa tail. It was easy to understand Vhetin’s reasoning for such a stealthy approach; if Kassh had set up a base nearby, it was a good bet that he had contacts in Anchorhead that would open fire on the two bounty hunters on sight. If they stayed away from the main roads, their chances of being gunned down decreased dramatically.

After several minutes of silence, Vhetin spoke. Jay was mildly surprised, as he wasn’t usually one who initiated conversation.

“So,” he said, his tone calm and casual. But there was a note of tension beneath it that caught Jay’s attention and made her instantly worry. “You seem to be getting along with Brianna better than before. I told you that she’d warm up to you eventually.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Brianna. I think she likes you. It’s nice to see you two getting along.”

That tight, tense cadence to his voice was still there. Whatever it was he really wanted to talk about, it obviously wasn’t Brianna. She was about to point this out when he suddenly grasped her arm.

“We’re being followed,” he murmured, his voice low. “Third building behind us. There’s a sniper — human male — on the roof trying to be sneaky.”

“What-” she craned her neck to see behind her.

“Don’t look!” he said, nudging her to face forward again. “Just trust me. He’s got a high-powered blaster rifle and he’s waiting for us to stop moving so he can get a good shot.”

Jay’s heart plummeted into her gut and her blood ran cold despite the sweltering heat. “What… what do we do?”

“Just keep walking,” he said. “And don’t look over your shoulder or he’ll open fire.”

She nodded and instead focused on her feet, heart racing. Vhetin kept his gaze fixed on the street ahead of him, no doubt consulting his helmet’s HUD. He raised his voice to its original, unusually casual tone.

“I was thinking of having Brianna teach you about rifle marksmanship when we got back. Your accuracy back on Coruscant left a little to be desired. Has she mentioned that to you at any point?”

Jay glanced at him, looking for some clue of what to do. When she got none, she replied, “Uh... yeah, she… mentioned something when she picked me up for training at the _Oyu_ _’baat_ the other day. I haven’t trained very much with rifles, though. Pistols are my strong suit.”

“I noticed.”

They emerged out onto a busy street once more. Speeders flashed by so fast they blew Jay’s hair to one side as they roared by. A tiny Jawa trader ambled down the side of the road on the back of a colossal bantha mount, accompanied by a retinue of dust-smeared Imperial stormtroopers. The bantha tossed its head and bellowed as it trudged past, effectively blocking them from proceeding.

“Now what?” she muttered to Vhetin. “We can’t cross.”

He just stared ahead. She got the feeling that he wasn’t looking at the street, though. No doubt he was consulting his helmet’s 360-degree vision, the “eyes” in the back of his head that came standard with almost all Mandalorian gear. His hand was still on her arm — a surprisingly comforting gesture that Jay knew was meant to keep her from making a move too early.

“Wait for it...” he whispered, pretending to look up and down the street as if waiting for a safe moment to cross. “Wait for it...”

Jay watched her partner intently, sweat breaking out on her forehead as she saw him tense. She needed to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. She could almost imagine the sniper getting into position on the rooftop behind her: settling in behind the hefty rifle, sighting in on the back of her head, finger hovering over the firing stud as he let out a long breath and prepared to fire—

When her partner spoke next, his voice was no longer quiet. It was harsh and cold and very unlike his normal quiet drawl. It was the shout of a soldier barking orders or a hardened warrior letting out a battle cry.

“Duck!”

_Crack!_

A yellow blaster bolt screamed past the space her head had occupied just moments ago, before Vhetin had shoved her hard to the side and out of the way. The bolt hit the street and sent sand and rock chips flying everywhere. Pedestrians all around them ducked and screamed at the sound of blaster fire. They scattered into the street, sending speeders careening off course. The passing stormtrooper patrol turned to deal with the new threat but the bantha had been spooked by the shot and took off down the street, carrying a screaming Jawa passenger with it.

The patrol leader cursed and took off after the great shaggy beast, only to be thrown over the hood of an out-of-control speeder that knocked into him from the side. The rest of the patrol shouted and ordered the driver out of the speeder while the lieutenant crashed into a knot of lanky Trandoshan warriors, who obviously took offense at such an affront and instantly opened fire themselves at the white armored soldiers.

More screams, panic, and mayhem quickly ensued. Within moments, everything had erupted into chaos.

Jay scrambled to her feet, drawing her pistol and sighting in on the sniper. She saw a human male clad in a green-black camouflage vest crouching on top of the building directly behind them. Even as she watched, waiting for a good shot, he tossed the rifle aside and broke into a run for the roof‘s edge.

“He’s trying to run for it!” She fired back at the man twice as he leaped off the edge of the building and landed hard in the sand. The sniper used the pandemonium to his advantage, sprinting into the chaotic crowd and firing back at them as he went.

Jay ducked two of the shots and cursed. _Why is he so intent on shooting_ me? _Vhetin_ _’s the more dangerous one._

“After him!” Her partner drew his own blaster and took off after the shooter. She followed right on his tail. “Don’t let him out of your sight!”

They sprinted after the man, fighting their way through the panicked throng of people. Jay dodged and ducked between screaming civilians while Vhetin, bigger and bulkier in his armor, had to resort to shoving people out of the way.

The sniper glanced back at them with eyes wide with terror and fired again. Vhetin caught a blaster bolt in the chest but didn’t slow. He stumbled slightly and kept running, his chest piece smoking. Jay heard a frustrated growl over his helmet’s vocoder.

They came to a four-way intersection that the sniper immediately sprinted through, not caring about the indignant shouts of speeder pilots that were forced to swerve and miss him.

“Keep on him!” Vhetin snapped. “I’m going to go to the left to see if I can cut him off!”

“Hurry!” she shouted back, running through the chaos and vaulting over a parked speeder. She slid across the hood and hit the ground running. “I don’t know how long I can keep up with him!”

Her partner instantly swerved down a side street, dashing through traffic faster than she thought possible. She watched him jump over the roof of a speeder in a single great leap, landing hard in the sand on the other side. It didn’t even slow him down.

She gritted her teeth and dodged a Nemoidian junk dealer who was currently screaming at the sniper to clean up the mess he’d made of his stall as he’d smashed through it. She caught the barest glimpse of the attacker’s vest, pulling further and further away down the street. The crowd parted for a half moment and she skidded to a halt, sighting in with her pistol on the sniper’s back. After only a moment, however, a bulky Gammorean blocked her view of the sniper and she was forced to take off again.

She sprinted into at another four-way intersection bustling with civilians. This street here was far busier than the last. There had to be at least fifty beings hurrying about, paying no attention to a single runaway sniper or the bounty hunters that followed him. And in this throng, the sniper was nowhere to be seen.

Jay came to a halt, breathing hard while her eyes raked over the crowd. Vhetin quickly appeared from down a side alley, staring around wildly as he searched for his prey. When he spotted her, his shoulders slumped and he headed in her direction.

“Hey,” she called, jogging up to her partner and meeting him halfway. She was panting hard and her hair was plastered to her sweaty forehead even from such a short chase. The heat was stifling, and she found it hard to draw a full breath. “I’m sorry… I lost him.”

Vhetin nodded, breathing hard as well. “He’s… a fast bugger. Come on, let’s get after him.”

They set off together approaching at a slower and more cautious pace. This man was too important – not to mention too dangerous – to let get away. But there was no sign of his camo vest or his spiky black hair among the sea of beings that crowded the street.

Then another blaster bolt slashed through the crowd. Jay reacted before thought could reach her mind; she dove into the sand and rolled to her knees, scanning the intersection with eyes narrowed and blaster raised. Another bolt screamed through the air she had occupied only moments before.

Vhetin hefted his rifle and stepped forward. “Got him!”

Jay saw her attacker as well. He was some distance down the street, already reloading his pistol for another shot. He was perched on a rickety fire escape mounted on the side of a building, high enough that he had a clear line of sight right to them.

Vhetin knelt in the sand, shifting into a more stable shooting position as he squeezed off three quick shots. People all around them screamed and dove for cover as the red blaster bolts bounced against the scaffolding’s durasteel rail and exploded into flashes of light and sparks.

Jay scrambled to her feet and fired twice at the sniper as well. She missed both times. The bolts popped against the building behind his head and he ducked as rock chips pattered against his back. He quickly abandoned his perch, leaping over the edge and taking off again.

“Damn it!” she yelled as she ejected the spent magazine of her blaster and fed in a fresh one.

“We can’t let him get away again.” Vhetin’s gaze snapped toward her. “I’ll go high, you go low!”

She nodded and took off into the crowd once more. Behind her, Vhetin blasted into the air on his jetpack, the pack releasing a deafening roar and dual spouts of white-hot flame. He soared up into the air and out of sight as Jay dashed through the throng, shoving people aside and shouting, “Move! Move! Move!”

She caught the barest glimpse of the sniper’s camo vest ahead of her, bobbing and weaving as the sniper also struggled through the panicked mob. She glanced to her left and saw her partner land hard on one of the buildings that lined the street. He rolled to his feet and began sprinting along the rooftops, keeping his helmeted gaze fixed on the sniper.

“Move!” Jay shouted again, firing twice into the air to reinforce her point.

It worked, more or less. The crowd parted for her, sprinting for the sides of the street and away from her gun. But they also gave the sniper more room to maneuver. Ahead, he sprinted down a deserted alley and vanished. Jay cursed and forced her legs to pump faster, her boots churning the sand beneath her feet. High above, Vhetin raced across the alley rooftops to keep pace with the sniper. His dark armor stood out against the bright blue sky as he threw himself from one side of a tight, congested alleyway all the way to the other in a single incredibly long leap.

Up ahead, their target raced through an open door and out of sight once more. Jay lowered her head and charged after him as fast as she could, straight through the door and into what looked like a droid repair shop. The room beyond was filled with racks full of old robot parts and sparks showered from the ceiling as repair droids buzzed about the duracrete work floor.

Two Sullustan workers stared at her with their wide black eyes, gibbering at her in a language she barely understood. She leveled her pistol at one of them and fired twice into the wall at the alien’s shoulder. Both wrinkly beings screamed and raised their hands in surrender.

“Where’d he go?” she demanded. “The guy in the camouflage?”

The Sullustans both whimpered and pointed down a dark corridor near the front of the building. Jay took off without another word, careful not to slip on a floor slicked with lubricator oil.

Moments later she emerged into another grimy alleyway, the sand turned to mud in patches where the residents had tossed dirty water out their windows. Obviously not the cleanest of places, but maybe the fleeing sniper would slip in the mud.

She saw Vhetin keeping up with her above, jumping from rooftop to rooftop and desperately trying to get in a shot with his rifle.

“Keep it up!” he cried as he front-flipped over a ledge in front of him. He landed on his feet and continued without losing pace. “We’re wearing him down!”

 _He_ _’s wearing_ me _down._ Jay gasped for breath as she ran. Her legs felt as if they were made of heavy lead and her chest burned with fire that spiked hard between her ribs with every footfall. She sucked in a deep breath and forced the pain from her mind, throwing all her strength and will into the pursuit of the camo-clad sniper. She saw with relief that the man ahead was tiring too, clutching at a stitch in his side as he stumbled along the alley. He was fast, but he was no match for a Mandalorian and a fledgling bounty huntress who’d spent months training for just this kind of occurrence.

And then they finally got their opening; the sniper tripped over a waste can and crashed hard into the dirt, spilling garbage and muck across the alley. Jay fired at the man’s feet, making him falter as he tried to scramble back up and continue his flight. She had almost drawn even with him when he fought back to his feet again.

He didn’t make it far. Above them, Vhetin grasped a horizontal coolant pipe and swung off of it, using the momentum to launch himself down to the street below. His booted feet stretched out and caught the sniper in the stomach.

“ _Ooomph!_ _”_

The sniper was knocked clean off his feet, flying through the air and slamming hard, head-first, into the mud brick alley wall. His head bounced off the unyielding brick with a _crack_ that made Jay wince despite herself. He bounced off, rolled through the sand for a few feet, and crumpled into a heap. He made a pathetic attempt to rise to his hands and knees, a tortured groan falling from his sand-covered lips. Then he fell again and didn’t rise.

Jay skidded to a halt next to her partner, who had also collapsed into the dirt, thrown off-balance by his attack. The sniper could wait, at least for the moment. It was one of the first lessons she’d learned while training: in the field, your partner’s well-being came before anything else. Without someone watching your back in situations like this, you were as good as dead.

Vhetin was lying on the sandy ground, gasping for breath as he rolled over onto his stomach with a groan. His armor was smeared with sand and mud and his gray flight suit was torn and dirty from the fall. She hesitated, then put a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you all right?”

He grunted and he sat up, flinching visibly and holding his arm. She saw dark blood leaking from between his fingers; he’d torn open his arm wound again, just when it was starting to heal from the duel on Coruscant.

“I’m… I’m good.” When he spoke, his voice came out in a breathless gasp.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I just skinned my... well, _everything_ with that stunt.” He stood with a groan. “I’ll be fine. Did we get him?”

“We got him.” She helped him up onto his feet then glanced over her shoulder at the sniper, still lying face-down in the sand. “I wonder why he was so intent on taking _me_ out. Did he even shoot at you?”

“No.” Vhetin shook his head and stepped away from her. “Not a single bolt.”

He knelt next to the sniper and slapped his face. The spiky-haired man groaned and stirred but didn’t wake. The Mandalorian slapped him again, harder this time

“Wakey wakey _shebs_ _’kovid_ ,” Vhetin said. “We’ve got questions for you.”

“ _Ahh_ _…_ ” The man suddenly groaned, reaching down to clutch at his ankle. “My leg! I think it’s broken.”

“That’s the least of your worries right now.” Vhetin reached down to his belt and drew a blaster, pressing the barrel up under the man’s chin. The man’s whimpering stopped — at least temporarily — in favor of quiet gasps of fearful breath.

“We want some answers,” the black-armored bounty hunter continued. “Simple ones. Who hired you? Where are they now? And why were you so intent on killing my partner?”

“Kriff... you,” the sniper gasped back, though his terrified expression contradicted his defiant words.

“Now you listen here, you little _di_ _’kut.”_ Vhetin grasped the man’s camo jacket and hauled him up until they were face-to-faceplate. “You’re going to tell me exactly what I want to know, or I’ll make your life so karking miserable-”

He broke off as the man’s jacket fell open to reveal an orange jumpsuit beneath. The hunter stared at it for a moment. Then he let out a disgusted sigh of, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He suddenly drove his helmet forward and headbutted their captive hard, square in the face. The sniper slumped to the ground, incapacitated and unconscious once more. Vhetin, meanwhile, rose to his feet and ran a hand across the smooth dome of his helmet in disbelief and indignation.

“What’s the problem?” Jay asked, stepping after him.

“This _schutta_?” Vhetin said, nodding toward the once again unconscious sniper. “He’s wearing an orange jumpsuit with local Anchorhead insignias. Only one group wears those around here.”

He shook his head and gestured to the limp man. “He’s part of Massano’s militia.”


	6. Old Grudges and New Problems

Jay cast cautious glances along the dark street, wary of any followers. After their run-in with the sniper, she felt very paranoid moving along these deserted back alleys. There could be mercenaries around every corner or snipers on every rooftop. She doubted their captive was the only person sent to kill them.

Vhetin was just ahead of her, keeping his rifle muzzle firmly planted in the sniper’s back. The man limped along on a hastily-set leg and was using a piece of wooden plan (ripped from the boarded-up window of an abandoned shop) as a makeshift plank.

So far it had been metaphorically smooth sailing since they’d captured him. No more surprise attacks and no more would-be assassins. Even the local Jawas were finally giving them a wide berth, as if the little creatures could sense that trouble was brewing.

They weren’t far from militia headquarters now. Jay had seen more orange jumpsuits adorning men and women on the streets. All who sported those colors carried blasters and definitely looked like they knew how to use them. On a backwater like Tatooine, just barely kept under Imperial rule, it was obviously a tough job keeping the streets peaceful.

And that was why they were currently slinking through side-streets and empty back alleys, trying desperately to avoid any local law enforcement until they reached the headquarters and were able to explain why they had one of the militia troopers bound and wounded as their captive. Assassin or no, the troopers would probably see the orange coloration first and take the situation the exact wrong way.

“So let me get this straight,” Jay murmured, keeping an eye on the area behind them. She was speaking to their prisoner. “You’re one of Massano’s militia troopers, probably hailed as a hero throughout Anchorhead for protecting civilians and eliminating gang violence in the city. But to you that’s apparently not good enough? You go to Kassh - sacrificing your reputation as a public defender - for _credits_?”

“It’s the nature of sentient beings,” Vhetin said darkly, shoving the man forward. Their captive groaned as he limped along on his uninjured leg. His other leg had been hastily set with medical supplies Vhetin had “liberated” from a nearby clinic. It was holding for the moment, though the pain made him less than talkative.

The Mandalorian triple-checked his rifle’s ammo counter and elaborated, “This _shebs_ _’kov_ ’s behavior is far from surprising. All beings who achieve fame or power want more.”

“Only a Sith deals in absolutes,” Jay pointed out with a hint of a smile.

Her partner didn’t laugh. “I challenge you to find a single exception in galactic history.”

“The Jedi,” she replied quickly. It was obvious answer; the half-mythical knights had been selfless heroes, valiantly defending the Old Republic from any who wished to harm it. They had been heroes in every sense of the word. Even as a young child, she had refused to believe the government’s explanation that the Order had been treacherous double agents, plotting to overthrow the Republic and take control for themselves. It was ridiculous! Jedi just didn’t _do_ that.

The Jedi had been killed off when she was still just a girl, of course. But she did remember all the major players of the Clones Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, Mace Windu, and — her personal favorite — Aayla Secura. The Jedi had been superstars among Republic citizens, and she still remembered the public outcry and mourning when news had broken that they were all dead. But Secura was her favorite for more than just her public acclaim. She was, in fact, the only Jedi Knight Jay had ever met face to face.

She’d only been a child, maybe four or five. Maybe six. It had been shortly after the Battle of Geonosis, when the Clone Wars first broke out. Several Jedi were assigned to Corellia when the Separatists made threats of invasion. Nothing came of it in the end and Corellia was spared from any major fighting. But the Jedi spent their time on the planet traveling from pole to pole, helping the displaced and the needy. They spent most of their time around the larger population centers like Coronet City, Corellia’s capital.

But one of those trips had carried General Secura right to the outskirts of Terimanna, the small town Jay had called home. Everyone poured out of their homes to welcome the Twi’lek warrior, who had already distinguished herself in battle on several occasions.

Jay, of course, wanted to go too. But her father, a staunchly anti-alien traditionalist, had refused her requests, saying that good folk didn’t cavort with “tentacle-heads.” Yet somehow she had convinced him to take her to the greeting ceremony and she had been part of the crowd waiting anxiously for the fabled Jedi Knight to disembark from her transport and greet them. Jedi were a rare sight in the countryside, even on a Core World like Corellia.

Jay didn’t remember much from that day; the fog of time had long ago descended and clouded her memories of the meeting. But she did remember thinking Secura, with her toned, muscled body and elegant leather-bound lekku, was one of the most beautiful beings she had ever laid eyes on. She remembered seeing the lightsaber clipped to the General’s belt and wishing with all her little heart that she could be a heroic Jedi too. And she remembered breaking through the crowd to give the warrior a hug, thanking her for her service as her mother taught her to do with all veterans of the Wars.

She remembered most of all the power she had felt radiating off of the woman. It was formless and elusive, yet so overwhelming that it almost made her fall to her knees. It came off the Twi’lek in waves, like great pulsing gusts of warm summer wind. Jay had never felt anything like it before that day and had never even come close to feeling its equal since.

The Force, as they used to say, was very strong with General Secura.

The Knight had smiled at the little girl hugging her and patted her hair, thanking her for her kind words before gently returning her to her scowling father and moving on. She was, after all, a busy woman who had far more important deeds to do than hug children. She moved on into the crowd — accompanied by her scowling clone attendant, Bly — and disappeared from sight.

Jay never forgot her meeting with the Twi’lek Knight. And though the rest of that exciting day had grown hazy over the years, she never forgot the feeling of that power that so effortlessly rose from her. It was pure joy, pure goodness and kindness distilled into a rolling wave of energy that had enveloped those around her and set their nerves tingling.

The next time Jay had seen Aayla Secura was years later on a HoloNet news bulletin proclaiming the Jedi to be traitors to the Republic. Secura was one of the many Knights killed by their own clone troopers during what was later called, “Operation Knightfall,” and, “The Great Purge.” After that, Jedi became a thing of the past and little more was spoken of them. They were gone, taking with them all the mysteries of that power Jay had only barely glimpsed…

She blinked, shaken from her reverie by a speeder that roared past with an echoing _whoop_ of repulsor engines. Their group came to a halt as they waited to cross the street and enter into another deserted side alley.

“The Jedi,” she said again. “They used their power for good. They weren’t corrupted by it.”

“Somehow I knew you’d use them as an example.” Her partner shook his head with a terse grunt. “And you’re wrong; the only reason the Jedi didn’t try to achieve more - whether they knew it or not - was because they already _had_ it all.”

She blinked. “Come again?”

“For a group of selfless defenders of justice, sworn to own little and love nothing, they actually possessed quite a bit.” He shrugged. “They had a huge, opulent temple, taller than any other building on Coruscant, as their personal home. They were the only ones allowed — by their own galaxy-wide law — to wield the most deadly melee weapons the galaxy has ever seen. And they had unrestricted access to virtually any resource their little hearts desired, so long as they claimed they were using it for good.”

“But…” Jay frowned, grasping for some words to prove him wrong. When they fell from her lips, they were far from convincing. “The Temple wasn’t _that_ fancy…”

He scoffed. “I’ve been there you know. It may not be as pretty these days, what with all the crumbling halls and Jedi skeletons, but it’s still quite the sight. I’ve seen Hutt palaces that were humbler. For _te Manda_ _’s_ sake, the Masters’ quarters were bigger than my entire ship.”

He shoved their hostage ahead of him as he continued. “And that’s just where they _lived_. They also had an unlimited budget allowance from the Republic, they were _de facto_ placed in command of virtually the entire war effort despite the fact that they were woefully inexperienced military tacticians, they were allowed to commandeer any vehicle, building, or starship they felt like, and-”

“But,” Jay pointed out, “they only used their power in times of need. When people were in danger.”

“True,” Vhetin admitted. “But just because you use your assets to help people doesn’t necessarily mean you _deserve_ those powers. Corruption can rear its head anywhere. And the more privileged the individual, the more likely they’ll misuse those privileges.”

“But they used their powers for _good._ _”_ Jay pressed. “Are you seriously suggesting the Jedi weren’t even a little altruistic?”

“But that introduces another problem,” he countered. “ _Whose_ good? They certainly didn’t fight for the same good as the Confederacy. And the CIS made up almost half the galaxy. That’s billions of people the Jedi didn’t deem _good_ enough to defend.”

“I…” Jay grasped for a counter argument and found none. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. “I guess I never thought of it like that.”

He sighed and shook his head. “I’m not trying to put down the Jedi. They _did_ do good. But their motives were suspicious to a simple merc like me. And Mandos have never really gotten along well with their kind.”

“So you’d prefer the motives of the bad guys? The Confederacy, perhaps?”

He shook his head. “No. I know lots of Mandalorians fought for the Separatists, but I personally don’t think they were any better. All I’m arguing is that there were good guys and bad guys on both sides — even among the Jedi.

“Despite what the Bathrobe Brigade would tell you,” he continued, “the world isn’t black and white. Or blue and red if you want to see it that way. Evil and good are forever intertwined, and only a dangerously foolish, and narrow-minded person separates that mess into a strict dichotomy of _light_ and _dark_. Mandalorians — and by extension, bounty hunters — recognize that the galaxy is far more complex than that.”

He shrugged. “It’s one of the many reasons the Jedi never really liked us.”

“And how do you know so much about Jedi?” Jay asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow and shooting him a small smirk. “Have you ever met one personally?”

“Maybe.”

She was about to ask what he meant by that. But he continued before she could remark further on the matter.

“Look,” he said, “the Jedi are just an example, and a pretty controversial one at that. All I’m saying is that no one is impervious to greed and selfishness. And the larger the money or fame or what have you, the worse it gets.”

“‘Power corrupts,” Jay said, quoting an old Corellian saying, “‘and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’”

He nodded. “Exactly. And with that in mind, it’s no wonder our militia friend here decided to torch his ideals in favor of a bigger paycheck.”

“Kriff the both of you,” the sniper suddenly muttered, speaking up for the first time since they had set his broken leg. “You can toss around all the fancy philosophy you want, but I didn’t leave because I was _greedy_. Massano’s a pain in the ass, plain and simple. Wanted to get away from him and his damn idealistic crusade.”

“Watch your mouth,” Vhetin growled, jabbing the man in the back with his blaster. “I was one of the ones who convinced him to take the job as militia leader. Without him, this cesspit would be crawling with Jabba the Hutt’s thugs. You should be thankful.”

“Thankful for what? The man drives the militia like we’re a bunch of slaves. Like we’re just pawns to be moved about and expended as Massano sees fit. He’s no leader. He’s a tyrant.”

“He’s earned the loyalty of his entire gang,” Jay said. “Fanatical loyalty from what I hear. So if you’re different, maybe you just couldn’t make the cut.”

Their prisoner sniffed in irritation, but said no more.

They walked for a long time in silence. She kept glancing over her shoulder as they continued deeper and deeper into the city, unable to shake the feeling they were still being watched. Yet all she saw was the usual cosmopolitan crowd of Anchorhead; Jawas, traders, moisture farmers, and the occasional lonely stormtrooper patrol. She told herself not to be so paranoid, but couldn’t repress a shiver of discontent snake down her spine.

“How much farther?” she asked after fifteen minutes of silence.

Vhetin seemed to consult his helmet’s HUD. “We’re close. Five minutes and we’ll enter militia territory.”

“And then what?”

“You’ll probably be fine,” Vhetin said, “because the militia isn’t much for attacking strangers unless attacked first.”

“I’m guessing you won’t be so lucky?”

Vhetin fidgeted and flexed his grip on his rifle, looking anxious even in his full body armor. He obviously wasn’t looking forward to the reunion with his former compatriots here. After all she’d heard, she doubted that he could call the militia his friends any longer.

“And you’re sure there’s no other way to do this?”

“I’m sure. We need backup to take Kassh’s base and Massano’s the only ally we’re going to find in Anchorhead. It just might take a little... persuasion.”

“How did you and Brianna end up forming this militia anyway? You’re a bounty hunter, not a revolutionary.”

“It’s… a long story.”

“I doubt our gun-happy captive isn’t going anywhere,” Jay said, gesturing to their prisoner. “We’ve got time.”

He hesitated, then sighed and relented. He hefted his rifle to a more comfortable position over his shoulder.

“Five years ago, Bri and I were hunting a bounty together here in Anchorhead. The target was an Ithorian big-game hunter who had a penchant for taking down _really_ big animals and getting quite a few people killed in the process. He came to the city hoping to claim the head of a krayt dragon and got a sponsorship from Jabba the Hutt.

“Bri and I hunted him for a few days, but didn’t get far. The corruption in the city was everywhere. The entire area was under Jabba’s control, and every lead we had turned into a dead end; no one wanted to talk for fear of angering the Hutt and his people. So Brianna decided to do something about it.”

He stared straight ahead of him, lost in the memory as he continued the tale. “She set up an audition stand, posing as a big-game hunter herself who was looking for hired help to get to the krayt dragon first. Meanwhile, we planted rumors that it was actually a cover for a city liberation force. Those who were sick of the corruption came to Bri and me to help out. Together, we hunted down Jabba's larger contacts and businesses in the city - discreetly of course - and drove them out. Without them, the big-game hunter was a piece of cake.

“After we finally captured the Ithorian, we knew that the city would fall back into its old ways as soon as we left. So we chose the bravest, most respected member of our volunteers and gave him the job as militia leader. His name was Quoren Massano.”

He gestured to the city around him. “We spent months cleaning up the city, and the militia only continued our work after we left. Bri and I actually lived here for a while. But after we caught the Ithorian, we were... forced to leave.”

Jay knew that that wasn’t the whole truth; the pause at the end had been a half-second too long to successfully mask her partner’s insincerity. But she had long since abandoned hope of him telling her the whole truth about his past, on Tatooine or at large. If he didn’t trust her enough yet, that was his problem.

“So then you came later back to Anchorhead,” she said slowly, “blew up their base, and shot Massano?”

“With a stun round.” Her partner squirmed. “Details are important.”

“But why?”

He was silent for a long time, obviously contemplating an answer. When he spoke, his voice was calm, level, and harshly controlled. It was a measured response, one where every word was carefully chosen for its neutrality.

“I had orders. And he was standing in the way of the completion of those orders.”

“So you just shot him?”

“With a _stun round_ ,” he repeated. “It was only because of me that my old partner didn’t kill him. In a way, he owes his life to me for that. Not that he’d ever see it that way.”

Jay was about to inquire more when the sniper finally spoke, drawing them both from the awkward conversation. He nodded ahead of them, to a simple stone building ahead of them marked with a bright neon sign: _The_ _Dusty Dewback_.

“That’s the new militia headquarters,” their captive said. “Massano set up there after the last time you came through, bucket-head.”

Jay wasn’t overly excited to trust the word of a man who’d tried to kill her, so she turned to her partner for confirmation. Vhetin was swatting the sniper across the back of the head, no doubt because of his use of the derogatory slur _bucket-head._

“Is this where Brianna’s coordinates lead?”

“That’s what my HUD says. It’s worth checking out either way.”

As they stepped closer, Vhetin tensed and his fingers tightened over the grip of his rifle. He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “Remember what I said earlier.”

She nodded and rested a hand on the butt of her holstered pistol. It was a casual motion, but no one could mistake its true intention. She could draw the pistol within the blink of an eye — she’d been practicing daily.

“Don’t expect a warm welcome,” she said. “Got it. And if we’re attacked?”

“Simple. Get out of there as fast as you can.”

“But-”

“If they’re going to attack me, they’re going to attack in force. They know what I’m capable of and they won’t be taking any chances. You’re good with a blaster, Jay, but you won’t be able to fend them all off.”

“And what are you going to do? Just attack them again?”

He didn’t say anything, but she noticed the way his finger was hovering over his rifle’s firing stud. That said more than enough. She let out a long sigh and shook her head. “Whatever. I’m not making any promises.”

“That’ll have to be good enough, I guess.”

Together, the three approached the main door of the cantina. They didn’t make it far before a hulking, dark-skinned bouncer with intricate-looking tattoos across his face stepped up to meet them. He was covered in dirt and sand blown in from the street and was sporting heavy protective goggles across his face.

“Halt,” the man said, holding up a hand. “No weapons are allowed inside the-”

He broke off as he saw exactly who he was speaking to. He narrowed his dark eyes behind the thick goggles. “Oh. It’s _you_.”

Vhetin inclined his helmeted head. “Varitalis. I wish I could say it was nice to see you again. But-”

The huge man interrupted. “I wouldn’t give a damn anyway. Turn around and leave before someone shoots you.”

“I need to speak with Massano.”

The bouncer, Varitalis, let out a booming bark of laughter. “Yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you? Last warning. Get out of here before I decide not to be so kind.”

Vhetin stood his ground. “It’s urgent.”

The big man reached for his blaster with a seemingly reluctant sigh. “You asked for-”

“There’s a gang infiltrating Anchorhead. Midnight Ultraviolet, they’re called. I’m here to stop them.”

That stopped him; the huge man froze, staring at Vhetin’s expressionless faceplate as if he could see the Mandalorian’s face through the tinted T-visor. The eyes behind his goggles narrowed into dangerous slits. His muscles tensed.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m a Mandalorian,” Vhetin said, holding the huge man’s gaze. “Lies are forbidden to my kind.”

The huge bouncer didn’t move, his hand still resting on the butt of his blaster. Jay couldn’t blame his hesitation. If she was in his place - and given all she’d learned about Vhetin’s last trip to Anchorhead - she wouldn’t believe a word he said either. Her own hand tightened around the grip of her pistol. If it came to a fight, could she take the big guy out before he hurt her partner?

But after a time, the huge man grunted and gestured to the sniper. “What are you doing with the Kid? Ransoming him?”

“He tried to kill us.”

“Good for him.”

Vhetin sighed and patiently explained, “I ran his face through an I.D scanner. He’s involved with the Midnight Ultraviolet branch here in Anchorhead. He confessed to us himself after a little... persuasion.”

That was an exaggeration. All they’d had to do was threaten to leave the sniper to die in the alley and he’d started to spill his guts. Jay had to stop herself from snorting at her partner’s embellishment.

“That’s... That’s not true!” the sniper said, speaking for the first time. “I didn’t say anything!”

“ _I went to Kassh a couple months ago,_ ” came the sniper’s disembodied voice, hissing with static as the sound spilled from a recorder held in Vhetin’s hand. “ _He said... he said he wanted a mole inside the militia and that he_ _’d pay if I passed him information on any upcoming Militia raids on him or any of his competitors. A-a few months after that, he ordered me to start sabotaging equipment. And after that-_ ”

“Let me through to Massano and I‘ll shut it down,” Vhetin said, shaking the recorder. “This goes on for a while.”

“It’s enough.” The bouncer held up a massive hand, scowling deeply at the sniper. The camo-clad man fidgeted under Varitalis’ furious glare, scuffing his feet in the sand and avoiding that goggled gaze.

The doorman eventually jerked his head and gestured over his shoulder. “Go on. I can’t promise what Massano will do to you, but he’ll want to know about the Kid.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Kriff off.”

Vhetin, Jay, and their hostage moved inside on Varitalis’ orders without further exchange. Jay was glad to be free from the big man’s scrutiny and let her grip on her blaster slowly relax. But she still didn’t move her hand: not when Vhetin disappeared inside, not when she passed by Varitalis, and not when she ducked through the door into the mud-brick building. 

The main room of the cantina was large, remarkably plush for downtown Anchorhead, and lit with rotating pinkish-red lights. There were tables set up all across the room, occupied predominantly by locals. There were mostly dirty-looking humans and Twi’leks, with the occasional spacer enjoying their lunch break. As far as Jay could tell, there was nothing to show that the bar was a front for any organization, let alone the local militia.

Varitalis shoved past them and disappeared through a dark red door behind the bar without a word. After a moment, two gray-armored Twi’leks left the room beyond and flanked the door, their hands on their blasters. They glared at Vhetin with barely-concealed vitriol.

“So...” Jay said, glancing between the two guards. “That went well.”

“Keep your eyes open,” Vhetin said, scanning the cantina with a slight turn of his head. He fell into a seemingly casual stance, his hands folded over the stock of his rifle the barrel pointed toward the ground. Jay knew that like her pistol, that rifle could snap up in the span of time between heartbeats. “If Massano’s in a combative mood, I don’t want you getting in the middle of it.”

“I can take care of myself,” she insisted with an irritated scowl. “If Massano’s all you say he is, you’ve got more to worry about than my safety.”

“I’m not the one who was almost sniped by a militiaman on Kassh’s payroll, and who almost took a turbolaser blast to the chest before that. I can’t help but think that your good luck is running out on this hunt.”

She patted her blaster. “That’s why I carry this. It’s not just for show, you know.”

He snorted softly, then fell silent and returned to his silent perusal of the cantina. They had only waited a few minutes when the dark-skinned bouncer reappeared from behind the red door.

“Massano will see you,” Varitalis grunted. “Just don’t try anything funny.”

Vhetin nodded and gestured for Jay to bring the prisoner. She followed her partner, yanking hard on the stun cuffs that bound the sniper’s wrists. He yelped in pain and walked faster.

Through the dark red door lay a considerably dirtier hallway. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of the rough mud brick and stone, occasionally reinforced by pillars and plates of durasteel or plastoid. Varitalis didn’t lead them far before he rounded on them, hooking his thumbs through the loops of his belt.

“Drop your weapons here,” the bouncer said. “Both of you.”

He gestured to a table set up outside another door, this one colored dark blue. There were already a few weapons lying there.

 _So much for that plan_ , Jay thought with a roll of her eyes. _I guess I_ _’ll have to rely on old-fashioned fists once we’re inside._

She watched as her partner stepped forward first and immediately began unloading his weapons. As he stripped away more and more of his defenses, she found herself thinking, _Kriff I hope this all stays peaceful._

His lightsaber pike came first, followed by his pistols, his twin lightsaber hilts, the two _beskar_ knives sheathed across the back of his belt, the extra blade down his right boot, his rocket-equipped jetpack, flamethrower, kneepad dart launchers, whipcord thrower, the thermal detonator hidden in his belt-pouches, and the rest of the various tools that Jay counted at fifteen before she lost interest.

She herself carried only her pistol and a small but effective vibroblade sheathed down her boot. She handed the weapons over more willingly than at Bloody Dawn headquarters - the last time she’d been asked to walk defenseless into unknown territory. She was certain, however, that Massano wasn’t a ruthless, bloodthirsty crime lord like Sekha. Whatever past he had with Vhetin, he had been put in charge of the militia for a good reason. Vhetin had trusted him once, and that was enough for her to trust him now — at least a little.

 _Vhetin saw promise in me, right?_ she thought as Varitalis gestured for them to enter through the blue door. _He_ _’s got a good eye for people. This Massano guy can’t be that bad._

She was wrong. As soon as her partner stepped into the room beyond, there was a sharp _clang_ and a shout of rage. Vhetin staggered out of sight, holding his head.

Jay’s heart leapt into her throat and she instinctively reached for her now-absent pistol. Grasping only air, she hurried into the room to see a tall, muscular man stepping toward Vhetin with a large durasteel pipe clutched in his hand.

She took a step forward, but stopped as Vhetin murmured, “Massano, I-”

The muscular man with the pipe hit him across the faceplate again hard enough to snap Vhetin’s head to the side. The Mandalorian sprawled to the ground, holding his head with a groan.

“You have _no idea_ how long I’ve waited for this moment,” the tall man growled, a grin stretching across his chiseled features. “Get up.”

“You don’t want to do this—”

“ _Get up_ , you worthless piece of-” He grabbed Vhetin by the throat and hauled him to his feet again.

No sooner had he pulled Vhetin to face-level than the bounty hunter suddenly sprang into motion. He ripped himself from Massano’s grasp, ducked the inevitable swing at his head, and grasped the hand the held the metal pipe. He brought the arm down on his knee, twisting it until Massano cried out in pain and dropped the weapon. The Mandalorian followed up with a blow to the gut, then an uppercut under the chin that sent Massano sprawling against the back wall. The man’s eyes rolled back into his head as he slowly slid down to the ground.

Two of the gray-clad guards rushed to help the militiaman. Vhetin turned to them and held up a hand in surrender. “Wait, guys, I-”

It was too late. They drew vibroblades and jumped at him. He ducked the first swipe, but he was still disoriented from the pipe blows to the head. He wobbled slightly, off balance and slowed by his wounds. One of his feet slipped on the sand floor, which had already been violently churned up by the scuffling of multiple pairs of feet. The next moment, one of the hand-length vibroblades was buried to the hilt in his shoulder.

He cried out in pain and clutched the wound and Jay quickly decided she was done staying out of the fight. She jumped forward to her friend’s aid and wrapped her forearms around the closest trooper’s neck. The Twi’lek man sputtered and drove an elbow into her ribs hard enough to make her gasp in pain. She remained, clinging to him with all the stubborn tenacity of an angry Kowakian monkey lizard. She drove her knee hard into the small of his back and wrenched him to one side, sending them both staggering into the wall.

Across the room, Vhetin was batting away weapons from two combatants simultaneously. He had no weapons of his own, but his combat armor served him well enough; he raised an arm and parried a vibroblade aimed at his throat, the weapon clanging off the impenetrable _beskar_ barrier with force. He drew back and struck forward with fists and feet, though his opportunities for offensive retaliation were woefully limited. The bounty hunters were outnumbered and outgunned and everyone currently fighting knew it.

With a grunt of effort, Jay’s captive wriggled in her grip, broke free of her hold, and backhanded her across the face. She staggered back and lost her balance, hitting her head against a rickety wooden chair. Stars burst through her vision and her stomach lurched dangerously with a strange sense of dizziness as she groaned in pain. Her attacker turned back to Vhetin, still managing to fend off the other trooper with his single good arm.

But Jay wasn’t out of the fight yet. She scrambled back to her feet, grasped the chair that had so unceremoniously halted her fall, and raised it over her throbbing head. Before the trooper could jump back into the fray, she brought it down through the air with all her might. There was a concussive jolt in her forearms as it connected with a surprisingly loud _crack_ and splintered into pieces over the alien man’s skull. The Twi’lek trooper’s head lolled and he collapsed forward into a heap on the sandy floor.

She wasted no time scooping up one of the broken chair pieces — one in each hand, held like daggers — and moved to help her partner. He was slowly being overwhelmed by his opponents, the weight of wounds and exhaustion slowing his movemens and dulling his reaction time. He took a jab to the shoulder from an incoming vibroblade, then a knee to the gut and a fist to the ribs. She had to intervene, had to get them both out of here before—

She made it two steps before a powerful voice boomed, “ _Stop!_ ”

Everyone in the room - bounty hunters included - stopped and turned to face the speaker.

Massano towered over them all, shaking his long hair out of his eyes and spitting out a mouthful of blood. He rubbed at his jaw, where a fresh bruise was forming from Vhetin’s uppercut. And with a sigh, he gestured to the remaining troopers, still clustered around Vhetin.

“That’s enough. Stand down.”

The troopers glared at Vhetin, but obediently followed orders and stepped away. Vhetin rose to his feet with a groan, then reached up to the vibroblade still protruding from his shoulder and yanked it out with a wrench. He examined the bloody green blade for a moment before tossing it to the floor at Massano’s feet. It thudded dully into the sand, stained deep crimson with the Mandalorian’s blood.

“I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t the reception I expected,” Vhetin said, his voice trembling with suppressed rage and pain. “But I didn’t come here to fight with you, Massano.”

“Well you sure as hell finished it.” The militia leader chuckled darkly and spat out another mouthful of blood. “I’d hate to see you actively _trying_ to start a brawl.”

He shook his head again and glanced to Jay. “You can drop the pieces of chair, miss. You won’t find any more fighting here.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that’s it?” She narrowed her eyes, not trusting the newfound peace. “One backroom brawl and everything is forgiven?”

“Not in the least.” A bit of steel came into Massano’s voice now. “But I think I got my point across that our monochromatic mutual friend here isn’t welcome. But you two obviously haven’t come to reminisce about the good ol’ days, and old grudges aren’t worth dying over.”

He rubbed at his bruised jaw again. “I’d say you’ve earned a few minutes peace after a brawl like that. I’ll hear you out, figure out why you’re here at least. Then we’ll go from there.”

“Jay.” Vhetin spoke up now. “Stand down. We’re good, at least for now.”

She sighed and tossed the splintered pieces of chair into the sand as well. “If you say so.”

“Wise choice,” Massano said. Now that the room was relatively still, Jay was finally able to get a good look at the militia leader. In all the scuffle, she’d barely gotten half a glimpse at the man she’d heard so much about.

First appearances revealed much about him. A human male in his thirties, well-built for his age and environment and obviously no stranger to the rougher side of life. He was handsome enough to warrant more than a passing glance: dark eyes, a square jaw, and a long scar over his right temple that marred his otherwise flawless chiseled features, all framed by long raven-black locks of hair. He honestly looked more like a holovid action star or the hero from some old romance drama so popular on Coruscant these days.

But she doubted holovid action stars or dramatists carried a full belt of grenades strapped across their chest, or a heavy-duty battle rifle slung across their back. They weren’t caked in a thick layer of sand, dust, and dirt from a lifetime of living among endless sand dunes and shifting seas of scorched earth. And they _definitely_ didn’t sport that very distinct series of pale yellow stripes that stretched up Massano’s left leg.

Jay had to keep herself from whistling in admiration. Instead, she settled for a raised eyebrow and a thought of, _Now_ that’s _something you don_ _’t see every day._

The mark was a second-class Corellian Bloodstripe, awarded only for acts of extreme daring and valor among the Corellian military. It was one of the greatest honors bestowed on her homeworld, reserved for only the greatest acts of heroism. Jay hadn’t seen many awarded in her time, so it was either fake – which was a serious offense – or Massano was truly a force to be reckoned with. She was willing to bet on the latter and grudgingly began to feel a small flush of admiration for the man, despite the fact that he had almost brained her partner with a durasteel pipe only moments before.

Vhetin, meanwhile, was shaking his head and slapping the side of his helmet. Blood was running freely down his arm and staining the sand at his feet, though he seemed to be ignoring his wounds for the time being. He looked disoriented and exhausted, his armor dirty, bloody, and scuffed by jabs and from the guards’ vibroblades, but he was somehow still standing even after the beating he’d received.

“My ears are still ringing,” he muttered with a quiet curse. “Of all the weapons you’re certified with, Massano, you had to use a metal pipe to drive your point home?”

Massano shook hair out of his face and folded his muscular arms. “It got the point across, didn’t it?”

The Mandalorian cursed. “I’ll say. You cracked me so hard half my HUD widgets shifted to the other side of the screen.”

Massano pointedly did not apologize. “So where do we go from here? Pipe or no, I’d hardly call us _even_.”

“I’m not expecting you to.”

“Good.” The militiaman settled himself into a nearby chair and threw one leg over his knee. “I’ll at least listen to why you’re here. Then I’ll decide whether or not to have you shot. You’ve earned that much.”

Vhetin sighed, still holding his helmeted head. “Fair enough. Your bouncer can fill you in on the basics. I still need to get my bearings after that knock. The world is still spinning.”

Varitalis stepped forward now to report while the Mandalorian leaned against the wall with his head bowed, recovering from his wounds as best he could. Jay was instantly at his shoulder to provide whatever assistance she could, though he gently declined any help.

“Apparently,” the bouncer said, “Vhetin and his partner apprehended a crime lord’s operative sent to kill them.”

 _Sent to kill_ me _,_ Jay mentally corrected him. _He wasn_ _’t shooting at Vhetin for some reason._

“So?” Massano said, folding his arms across his large chest and leaning back. “That’s not our problem.”

“It’s the Kid.”

He blinked, uncomprehending. “ _What?_ ”

“It’s one of your militia troopers,” Vhetin said. He gingerly took a seat in another nearby chair. Jay was forced to stand; she had broken the only other chair in the room. “And he works for a crime lord named Kassh. A crime lord my partner and I have been hired to bring in.”

“That... that’s not possible. The _Kid_? No way.”

“My contacts tell me that Kassh set up a base somewhere near Anchorhead a few months ago,” Vhetin said quietly. “Ever since then, he’s slowly been corrupting the city again, right under your nose. He needed another outlet for his syndicate, especially once he was put under pressure to leave Coruscant. Apparently he had an eye for old stomping grounds; he used to work for Jabba the Hutt.”

“That may be,” Massano said, “but if he was trying to get his slimy fingers into the city, I’d have heard of it by now!”

“If you don’t believe us,” Jay added, “listen to him.”

She jerked her head at the sniper, who had been standing quietly in the corner guarded by the two large Twi’lek sentries. Now, thrown into the spotlight once more, he cringed and tried to shrink back into the shadow of his guards. They offered him no such courtesy, shoving him forward a few steps until he stood alone more or less in the center of the room.

Massano stared at the Kid for a long, pointed moment before demanding, “Well? Is it true?”

“I-I-”

“Is it _true_?”

“Yes!” the sniper cried, breaking with barely any pressure. “Yes, yes it is!”

Fire bloomed in Massano’s dark eyes. His hands clenched into fist in his lap and his jaw squeezed so tightly that Jay could hear his teeth grinding together. She didn’t think she’d ever seen someone more furious in her entire life.

 _If looks could kill_ , she thought, _everyone in this room would be dead right now_.

The militia leader stood and stepped forward until he towered over the sniper. The spiky-haired man cowered in Massano’s presence, trying his best to hide again into the shadow of the two Twi’leks that flanked him. Again he was forced out from cover to stand before the wrathful giant of a man looming over him.

“ _Why_?” Massano demanded.

“I... I needed the credits! I mean, it’s really great bein’ hero of the city and all, but it doesn’t exactly pay well and-”

Massano cut him off with a powerful backhand slap across the face. The Kid cried out in pain and fell silent. The motion was meant to humiliate rather than hurt, and the sniper soon returned to his guards with a face glowing red from more than just the slap.

Massano paced back and forth through the room for a few moments, his face was still pulled down in a furious scowl. Jay didn’t even want to imagine what was running through his head right now; if the look in his eyes was any indication, his thoughts were as black as night. He gathered those thoughts for a moment before turning back to the sniper, who was whimpering quietly.

“What did you want with these two?” He gestured to Vhetin and Jay.

The sniper glanced between the bounty hunters and said, “K-Kassh gave me a call a few days ago. Said that there were people after him, and that they might be comin’ to Anchorhead. He gave me orders to kill on sight. He contacted me _personally,_ man; he _never_ does that! I figured there’d be some serious digits on the paycheck involved, so I-”

“So you decided to slot us the first chance you got,” Vhetin finished. He shook his head. “I expected Kassh to send his lackeys to do his dirty work, but this is just insulting.”

“N-no,” the sniper stuttered. “I wasn’t supposed to kill you.”

“Who then?” Massano growled.

The sniper stared up at him in terror, then hesitantly nodded to Jay. “Just her.”

There was silence in the tiny, stuffy room. All eyes were suddenly on Jay; even Vhetin was staring at her in confusion. The nape of her neck prickled uncomfortably at the revelation and she frowned in confusion that was mirrored on everyone’s faces — except Vhetin’s, of course.

“What do you mean _just me_?” she demanded.

“M-my orders were to leave the Mandalorian alive. B-but the woman w-who traveled with him... Kassh ordered me to kill her.”

Everyone turned back to the sniper, listening intently. Only Vhetin and Massano continued to stare at her for a moment before turning their gazes slowly back to the sniper.

“Why?” Jay pressed.

“H-he said you were the weak link,” the sniper whimpered. “That if you were taken down, the Mandalorian would be easier to get to. Easier to manipulate. That’s why he had to stay alive. He’s no good to Kassh dead, after all.”

“What, so I was supposed to be some kind of message?” she said heatedly, her voice rising with every word. “Some dejarik piece taken out of the game so it would be easier for Kassh to win?”

The sniper gulped and nodded, to which Jay scoffed and turned away with a terse shake of her head. It was ridiculous! She wasn’t some damsel to be targeted or protected by her betters. She could hold her own in any fight Vhetin could and had, in fact, already survived situations in her first outing as a huntress that would spell doom for most others! If Kassh wanted to take her down, he’d have to do better than this.

But her indignation was cut short as Massano spoke again. The tall man gestured darkly to the captive militia sniper and growled, “Anything more?”

“T-that’s it, I swear!” the Kid whimpered. “I mean, apart from giving him information on the occasional raid, I swear I didn’t do anything else!”

Massano glared at the trooper, then sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Kid,” he said slowly, quietly, “I don’t care how much you did or didn’t do. You stabbed us all in the back. You betrayed us all. Far as I’m concerned, you’re no better than the thugs we try to drive out of this city. We don’t need scum like you.”

The Kid’s eyes slowly widened in fear, obviously thinking Massano was going to blast him right there and be done with it. Jay almost wished the tall man would do just that; it was just what the cowardly milita sellout deserved. Besides, it would send Kassh a clear message that the hunters coming after him were not a matter to be taken lightly. But Massano had something else in mind.

He gestured to the open door. “Get out.”

The Kid didn’t move, as if convinced it was a trap. “W-what?”

“Get out now,” he repeated, “and don’t come back. _Ever_.”

“But...” the sniper licked his lips nervously, “w-where am I going to go?”

“I don’t give a kriff.” Massano’s voice was cold and harsh. “I’m giving you five hours. If you can get out of the city before then you’re a free man. If not, you’ll spend a life sentence on Oovo IV for aiding and abetting an organized criminal syndicate.”

The sniper’s eyes widened with terror as Massano glanced at a chrono along one wall. “Time starts... now. Get moving.”

The Kid stared at him for a split-second, still sporting a look of total disbelief. But then reality seemed to take control and he turned and disappeared through the door, hands still bound by active stun cuffs. The sound of his retreating footsteps echoed down the hall, until the door leading out into the cantina slammed shut and he was, once and for all, gone.

Vhetin stared at the door for a long, thoughtful moment. After the door crashed shut he glanced to Massano and said, “You sure that was a good idea? He could go running right back to Kassh. We don’t need our target getting any more intel on us.”

Massano ignored him. He nodded to the two gray-armored Twi’lek guards and said, “Follow our young friend. Make sure he gets out of the city. If he tries to lay low and hide, persuade him otherwise. Lethal force is authorized if you deem it necessary.”

The two aliens saluted and left the room without a word. Massano watched them go, then turned to the hunters.

“You two,” he said, beckoning to them to follow, “follow me. You’ve bought yourself five minutes. If you’re still pestering me after that, I shoot you where you stand.”

~~~~~~~~

After retrieving their weapons, Massano led them back out into the cantina and motioned for them to take a seat at the bar. He told the bartender, a chubby human male, to give him a mug of Corellian ale. As the tender set the drink in front of him, Massano rubbed his forehead and turned to Vhetin.

“Why in the _hell_ did you come back? I thought you’d done the smart thing and decided never to come near Anchorhead again.”

“I need your help,” Vhetin said bluntly. “We can’t take down Kassh without the militia’s support.”

Massano glared at him. “So you come here, set up the militia, almost _destroy_ the militia months later, then a couple years after _that-_ ”

Vhetin held up a hand — still stained with the blood soaking his shoulder — and interrupted him. “I know how it sounds. If it helps, I do regret what I did here. I was only following my orders.”

“Kriff your orders,” Massano snarled. “You put fifteen militia troopers in the medcenter and killed three others. _I_ had to break the news to their families. Damn it, Vhetin, what was I supposed to tell them? That their fathers, sons, and husbands were killed by the guy who picked them for the militia in the _first_ place?”

“Don’t,” Vhetin said forcefully, shaking his head and staring at the bartop. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“What did you tell them?” Jay asked.

The militia leader glanced at her, then shrugged and took a swig of his ale. “I told them the truth. That their loved ones were killed by an Imperial strike team intent on butchering one of our protectees.”

“The guy had been responsible for smuggling thousands of kilos of spice,” Vhetin said, sounding like he was speaking through clenched teeth. “He ruined more lives by delivering and distributing that _osik_ than I did by taking him down. Don’t pretend he was a saint.”

Massano snorted. “Tell that to the widows and orphans you made out of the innocent civilians here. He may not have been a saint, but those militia troops you wounded and killed were innocent.”

“No one is _innocent_ ,” Vhetin grunted. “Especially not here.”

“Oh kriff you and your semantics,” the milita leader snapped. “You murdered those boys with no regard to the consequences. To the people here, you’re no better than a stormtrooper.”

This time, the Mandalorian didn’t disagree.

A heavy, uncomfortable silence fell between them. Vhetin was still staring at the bartop, his hands clenched into fists in front of him. Massano was glaring at the the hunters as if he wanted nothing more than to pick up his pipe again and continue his beating.

Jay couldn’t stand the quiet. They had a job to do, and they couldn’t let past grudges distract them. So she cleared her throat and said, “I’m sure you two have a laundry list of things to argue about. But we’re here to right some of those wrongs. We have information that you need to know about.”

“Keep your information,” Massano grunted, taking another long draft of ale. “I don’t want it from the likes of you. I can handle this gangster fellow on my own.”

“You may think so,” Vhetin said, still not looking up from the rough, sand-blasted wood under his bloodied gloves, “but you’re underestimating how dangerous Kassh is. He wouldn’t have such a hefty price on his head if a local militia force could take him down.”

Massano glared at him again. “I’ve never heard of this Kassh.”

“He’s big in the Coruscant underworld,” Vhetin explained. “That’s a bit removed from your sector of the galaxy. But he’s here now and staking a claim on your turf.”

Massano grunted. “What would he want here?”

“An established black market, easy proximity to Jabba the Hutt’s base of operations, little to no Imperial presence. What more could a criminal ask for?”

The militiaman grunted again and took a long swig of his ale.

Vhetin continued, unperturbed by the tall man’s feigned nonchalance. “This guy is cruel, ruthless, and will let nothing and no one stand in his way. He’s not going to stop until every last member of your militia is either dead or driven out, leaving him free to place Anchorhead under his complete control. I know how he operates, and if you don’t stop him now you’ll be dead within the month.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No. But it’ll cost lives if you don’t listen.”

“Like the last time I didn’t listen to you?” Massano said. “It wasn’t that different back then. ‘Cept you had a pretty Imperial Wheel right there-” he pointed to Vhetin’s helmet forehead, “-and you had no qualms about shooting innocent men to get what you wanted. Once an Imp, always an Imp, I say.”

Vhetin didn’t say anything and stared at him for a long time, holding the militia leader’s gaze. Even after Massano had looked away, Vhetin still stared at him. Jay inwardly cringed on her partner’s behalf; that last remark had obviously hurt.

She sighed and decided to take the reins.

“Look,” she said. “We’re not the bad guys here. We’re just trying to stop this guy before anyone else gets hurt.”

Massano let out a dark chuckle. “And my uncle is the Emperor. Sorry, but after the last time your partner roared through here, I find it hard to believe you’re here now to do what’s best for us.”

He turned to face his drink. Their conversation was very clearly finished. “Your five minutes are up. Leave now before I have you both arrested.”

“Massano,” Jay pressed, “You need to listen to us. We-”

“Don’t tell me what I _need_ to do,” he suddenly interrupted. His voice was full of steel. “I already spared your lives. I suggest you leave before my patience and forgiveness runs out once and for all.”

“But-”

“Let it go, Jay,” Vhetin said with a sigh, standing from the table and turning toward the door. “Massano’s right. I don’t belong here.”

“No, I’m _not_ going to let it go,” Jay said heatedly. “And neither should you!”

She turned back to Massano, looking at the man with an indignant scowl. After all Vhetin had told her about him - how he was a good, brave, _honorable_ man - the bastard was just going to send them away? She’d busted her ass chasing a Midnight Ultraviolet-financed sniper through Anchorhead, being shot at the whole way, for _this_?

She placed her hands on the bartop and leaned close to the militiaman. “I’m sure you don’t know or care who I am,” she said, “but I’m going to tell you anyway. My name is Jay. I was born on Corellia, just like you. And I was betrayed by the people I thought were my friends, just like you. I used to be part of the Empire and was damn proud of it. But they threw me in prison, beat me and interrogated me for months on end for a crime I never committed.”

Massano didn’t move, but she could tell he was paying close attention.

“I would still be there today,” she snapped, turning and gesturing to Vhetin, “if _he_ hadn’t have decided to free me. He _saved_ my _life_. There wasn’t any profit in it for him. There wasn’t any glory. He just saw someone in need and decided to help.”

“Jay-,” Vhetin murmured in protest, but she ignored him.

“He didn’t know me,” she continued. “He didn’t know about my past or my loyalties, but he rescued me anyway. An Imperial traitor, rotting away in a cell and he decided to rescue me anyway. It was a completely selfless decision. And he’s saved my life more than once since then as well.”

She sneered at the black-haired man, who was staring intently into the depths of his mug. “I don’t know what he did the last time he was here. But I do know that ever since then he’s struggled to make up for the things he did while in the Empire. And now he comes here, offering you information that will save hundreds of your militiamen and you turn him away? How _dare_ you!”

Massano didn’t even look at her. He just took another long swig of his drink. If he was moved by her speech, he didn’t show it.

“Your five minutes,” he said again, “are up. Unless you fancy seeing the inside of a Tatooine prison cell, you’d best leave now.”

“Jay,” her partner murmured, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We should go.”

She shook her arm out of his grip and leaned closer to Massano.

“Listen to me,” she hissed. “We’re here for a good reason. And if you just sit back on your ass and do nothing, Anchorhead will _burn_ before the year’s end. Send us away if you want. But consider yourself warned.”

With that she turned and stormed out of the cantina. The cantina door slammed shut behind her, loud enough to make several beings glance up. Vhetin stared at Massano for a moment, then turned and followed her without another word. The militia leader was left to his drink, sitting alone at the bar.

He found his partner leaning up against the cantina wall, staring out at the street. Her face was the perfect image of livid frustration, her arms folded tight over her chest. He sighed as he approached, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Jay… I appreciate what you did in there,” he said quietly. “No one… no one’s ever defended me like that before.”

She scoffed and shook a loose strand of hair from her eyes. “Fat lot of good it did us. He still didn’t listen.”

“You can’t argue with Massano,” Vhetin said. He leaned up against the wall next to her. “He’s stubborn as... well, as a Corellian. He’s like you in a lot of ways.”

“I’m _nothing_ like him,” she snapped. “If someone came into my city hoping to kill and profit from it, I’d drive the bastard _out_ , not sit on my ass because of an old feud with someone who’s trying to _help_.”

“Everything Massano said in there was true.”

“I don’t care,” she replied. She glanced at him, then stubbornly stared down at her boots. “Everything _I_ said was true, too.”

Vhetin smiled beneath his helmet and gestured for her to follow him as he set off down the street. Her loyalty was touching, but there was really nothing they could do. Massano had made up his mind about them. He knew from experience that nothing could be done to change it now.

“We just need to find a different way to bring Kassh down.” He jerked his head in the direction of the spaceport and said, “Come on. Let’s head back to _Void_ and see if Kalyn or Tarron has any new information for us.”

They walked about three blocks in silence. Jay was still fuming, and Vhetin was more than happy to leave the heated conversation behind them. Eventually, though, he felt compelled to say, “I guess the nexu’s out of the bag now, though.”

She glanced up at him. “About what?”

“About how I used to work for the Empire.” He grimaced as he glanced at her. “I’m… sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding less surprised than he thought. “That. It’s… it’s okay, Vhetin. Everyone’s allowed to keep secrets. Besides, I’ve kind of suspected for a while now.”

“But you have to admit, it was kind of a whopper. I shouldn’t have kept it from you for so long, especially given what happened to you on Corulag.”

“I don’t hold it against you. We all make stupid mistakes. You’re no different.”

He was about to say more when a hailing tone sounded from inside his helmet. He triggered his comlink with a blink of his eyes. A transmitter number popped up on his helmet’s HUD, and he answered the call with, “Farnmir, nice to finally hear from you. Have you found Kassh’s base?”

“ _Not as of yet_ ,” came the bounty huntress’ voice. Vhetin let the call filter through his helmet speakers so Jay could be part of the conversation as well. “ _I found something much better._ ”

“What would that be?” Jay said inquisitively, staring at him.

“ _Well..._ ” Farnmir paused, “ _it looks like Kassh has been a busy little boy. He_ _’s already got a racketeering operation set up. I’m seeing a business in town, calling itself uh... well, I can’t actually read it from here. But the sign’s got a big-ass splintered diamond logo, right on the front._ ”

“The Midnight Ultraviolet insignia,” Vhetin said, scowling.

“ _He_ _’s barely even trying to hide it_ ,” Farnmir said, sounding amused. “ _Cocky bastard._ ”

“This far from Coruscant, I’d be surprised if anyone knew about his business,” Vhetin pointed out. “It’s a perfect place to start a new operation, particularly if he’s facing fire from the other crime lords.”

“Do you think he’s there?” Jay asked.

“ _Mmm, no. But you_ _’ll find this interesting: I’ve been watching this place for an hour or so now, and I’ve seen at least ten militia troopers going in and out._ ”

“What?” Vhetin asked. “Did you get pictures?”

“ _Hell yeah_ ,” Farnmir answered. “ _And you_ _’re going to love this; one of the pictures shows a militia trooper tucking a nice fat pouch of credits into his jacket.”_

Jay’s eyes widened. _“_ Kassh is paying them off right under Massano’s nose. We got him!”

With that, she turned and dashed back toward the cantina. Vhetin started after her, calling, “Wait, Jay-”

She didn’t bother waiting for her partner. She stormed back into the cantina, throwing open the door and sprinting over to Massano, who was still sitting at the bar with another drink. He glanced up at her as she approached, surprised to find her back.

“I thought I told you-”

She interrupted him, slapping her hands down on the bartop triumphantly.

“We’ve got something to show you. You’re coming with us.”

~~~~~~~~

The four stood on a rooftop a few doors down from Kassh’s business. Vhetin was staring at the base with an unwavering masked gaze. Jay was on her belly in a trained sniper position, looking through a pair of macrobinoculars and observing the street below. Kalyn Farnmir was consulting her arm-mounted datapad, scratching at the stubble on her head. And Massano was looking between the holopics he’d been provided and the militia troopers visible on the street below with unbridled fury.

“You can glare all you want,” Farnmir murmured, still staring at the hologram thrown up by her datapad. “It’s not going to make it go away.”

“I told you Kassh was a serious threat,” Jay added, still scoping out the business through her binoculars. “He’s probably corrupted half of your militia in the few months he’s been here.”

Massano shook his head and turned away in disgust. “I don’t believe it. I don’t kriffing believe it.”

“It looks like they’re posing as a restaurant,” Vhetin murmured. His helmet’s flag-like rangefinder slid down to provide him with a better scan of the building. His HUD lit up in a dazzling array of colors, throwing up structural schematics, heat signatures, and even a history of the building’s owners. “Smart. Lots of people go in and out and no one pays any attention.”

“Smart?” Massano snarled. He clenched his fists tightly, a sneer twisting his features. “ _Smart?_ Those are _my men_ he’s messing with down there. I’ve _bled_ for those sons of bitches!”

“Calm down,” Farnmir said. “Not all your men are on Kassh’s payroll.”

“But which ones _aren_ _’t_?” Massano cried, throwing his hands up in the air. “I don’t know which of my men I can trust now!”

“Who was the Kid?” Vhetin said suddenly.

“What?”

“Who was the Kid?” he repeated. “A new recruit?”

“I— yeah... yeah, we picked him up a couple months ago. He helped us storm a warehouse that belonged to a bunch of gunrunners. He-”

“I don’t need to know his life story,” Vhetin said, raising a hand to silence him. “So he’s not one of the original militia members Brianna and I screened?”

“No. He’s not.”

Vhetin gestured to the holopics that were clenched in Massano’s hand. “And the rest of the militia members in those pictures. Are they all new as well?”

Massano shuffled through the holopics. After a time, he tossed them to the ground. “They’re new members, mostly. Recruited within the last few years Where are you going with this?”

The Mandalorian didn’t answer. Instead he turned to Farnmir and said, “Do you have the security tap up and running?”

She nodded, holding out her arm to display a flickering holo of the street below. “It’s a good thing your guys set up security cameras around the city, Massano. Otherwise our job would be a lot tougher.”

Farnmir had been searching through the security footage of the past week, having her powerful shipboard AI system pick out any instances where militia members came into view. The current hologram played through each instance a militia trooper entered the restaurant. Vhetin nodded to the image and folded his arms.

“Notice a pattern? None of them are the older militia troopers. In fact-”

He nodded to Kalyn, who sped through the recording until Varitalis, the cantina bouncer, passed into view. When he came near Kassh’s front business, he didn’t even glance at it. He walked past the door and didn’t look back.

“Your security cameras recorded four different instances of your veterans passing by the restaurant,” Farnmir said. “None of them stopped.”

“So?” Massano said. “That just means those four just didn’t go in the building at that time.”

“Actually, no,” Farnmir said. “I’ve been monitoring comm channels. Every corrupt militia trooper checked in at the restaurant. What would happen every time is...”

She displayed the image of one of the troopers being approached by a Rodian door greeter. The Rodian would shake their hand, they would exchange a few words, then the trooper would be led inside.

“...the greeter talks to them for a bit, and he always manages to say the words _we have always appreciated your business_. Then the trooper emerges around fifteen minutes later and goes about his business. Even those rare few who aren’t in the mood for a payoff are approached by the greeter, just in case.”

Farnmir displayed the image of the Rodian walking up to a militia soldier. The holo sputtered and began playing sound. “ _Would you care to come in for a refreshment?_ _”_ the Rodian said in its reedy voice. _“We at the Sandtrap Restaurant have always appreciated your business._ ”

The trooper shrugged the Rodian’s sucker-tipped fingers off his shoulder and said, “ _Not now. Too many eyes on me at the moment. Maybe I_ _’ll stop by for a drink or two later tonight._ ”

Farnmir paused the recording. “We could have stared at it for days and found nothing if we didn’t find that one kid tucking credits into his coat.”

“So what?” Massano said. “What’s the point to all this?”

“Your veteran militia trooper,” Farnmir explained, showing the holo of Varitalis again, “not only _doesn_ _’t_ stop, but isn’t approached by the Rodian. The bug-eyed bastard doesn’t even spare your trooper a second glance.”

“So the veterans can be trusted?”

Farnmir shut down the hologram and rested her hands on her hips. “I’ve been in this business a long time,” she said. “And I can tell when criminals are scoping people out and when they’re deliberately avoiding them. Kassh knows that the veterans are too loyal to you. They aren’t the weak link in your operation. The newer recruits are.”

Massano pondered over the news. “That makes sense, I guess. So what do I do?”

“Gather your veteran militia troopers,” Vhetin said. “ _Only_ the veterans. If we’re going to stop Kassh, we need to go as soon as possible. We’ll brief your guys on the way.”

Jay nodded in agreement and clambered to her feet. “We should probably sweep the troops for bugs on the way. If Kassh has moles in the militia, it’s possible they have ways to monitor the veterans.”

Massano nodded, a steely look of determination coming into his gaze. “Okay. I’ll get my guys together and prep a speeder. You have the coordinates to Kassh’s base?”

Farnmir nodded. “I’ll send them once we’re underway.”

“Then we’ll be ready by sundown. Meet us then and we’ll head out.”

The militiaman nodded to them in parting and strode toward the rooftop access door. After a moment Farnmir followed him. As she went she called over her shoulder, “I’m gonna go double-check those coordinates, just in case. I’ll be in touch.”

Vhetin nodded and returned to scrutinizing the restaurant. Jay clipped the macrobinoculars back to her belt with a sigh. She glanced over at her partner, hesitated, then said, “Do you think this will work? I’m not sure a full-on assault is the wisest choice. It’ll give Kassh plenty of time to prepare.”

“Normally,” Vhetin replied, “I would say that I vouch for those men and their skills. Now I’m not so sure. We still don’t even have solid evidence Kassh is even here. His organization is here, but he’s still in the wind.”

“You didn’t really answer my question. I know we need backup, but this seems like a pretty big gamble. You really think we can get this done?”

He pointedly said nothing. The uncertainty of their situation didn’t require further elaboration. They both knew they were still flying blind. Jay couldn’t shake the feeling they were drifting further and further from their target. That they were doing exactly what Kassh wanted them to do.

“We should probably get back to _Void_ ,” she eventually said, taking one last look at the restaurant. “Maybe Tarron will have some miracle information for us. If not, we can still get some rest before we have to move in on the MUV base.”

Vhetin nodded and held the door open for her. “Look on the bright side,” he said. “We’re almost done.”

“Yeah,” Jay said, standing and following him down the stairs. “Almost done…”


	7. Midnight Ultraviolet

**Kassh** **’s base, Tatooine Dune Sea**

Vhetin and Kalyn Farnmir crept through the desert at a crouched run, both taking great care to stick to the shadows and remain undetected. They were deep in enemy territory now. They were shielded from unfriendly eyes by a a crumbling cliff of broken rock and shale that stretched above their heads for several meters. Even with the meager shelter, however, they were still treading on metaphorically thin ice; any slip up would not only endanger their own lives, but the lives of everyone else accompanying them.

“Do you think he knows we’re here?” Vhetin whispered as they passed by a huge limestone boulder.

Farnmir shook her head, pressing her back against the rocky ridge and keeping her hefty sniper rifle pointed toward the ground. “No. If he did, he’d have security forces crawling all over us in a heartbeat. What’s your motion tracker show?”

He checked his HUD’s tracker, a small circle in the corner of his helmet’s holographic readout that provided a real-time representation of local contacts caught by his helmet’s built-in scanners. Friendlies showed up as green dots, confirmed enemies as red. While there were plenty of both present, he saw with relief that the tiny red dots were still at a distance of around a hundred meters.

 “It’s clear,” he reported. “We’re good.”

“Copy that.” She slung the rifle over her shoulder and began climbing the five-meter ridge, careful not to dislodge any of the loose pebbles that dotted the rocky slope. Vhetin followed her, climbing just as cautiously and keeping steady handholds. His foot slipped only once, dislodging a small shower of rocks to the ground below. They clattered loudly as they fell and the sound took a painfully long time to echo away into the desert night.

Farnmir spun above him and hissed, “ _Careful_. Do you want to be slotted by a sniper?”

“Won’t happen again,” he muttered with clenched feet as he moved his foot more carefully. This time the rocks held and they continued their climb uninterrupted. Once at the top of the ridge, they were rewarded with an unobstructed view of the desert valley further on and the decommissioned Republic military compound that rested within.

 _Smart of Kassh_ , he thought as he settled himself down on his stomach. _Back during the Old Republic, there were all kinds of old bases set up here, digging up ancient artifacts and scavenging the desert. A ready-made fortress, ripe for the taking._

The compound was indeed a fortress, though a modest one. There were spotlight towers set up at the corners of the facility, each manned by a pair of guards. A huge, defunct Jawa sandcrawler, clearly a few centuries old and feeling the weight of every year, lay half-buried in the sand along the eastern edge of the perimeter. As Vhetin zoomed closer, he saw that there were three different sniper posts erected along the top of the broken-down transport. Other barricades dotted the perimeter of the base, constructed from old, wrecked speeder bikes and huge piles of scrap metal. These barricades were wrapped with razor-sharp bundles of wire and had gaps raggedly cut away to allow for sniper positions.

As if that wasn’t defense enough, there was also a long, thirty-meter stretch of unguarded sand between the base’s courtyard and the start of the desert, all of it barren save for more razor wire rolls arranged in a rough checkerboard pattern. It was an obstacle course, meant to slow down intruders and make them easy targets for the snipers.

In all, the defenses were of a familiar design that Vhetin knew well from past experience with smugglers and other criminal cartels. It was easy to build, easy to fortify, and easy to defend; the perfect hidden base.

Farnmir clambered down onto her stomach as well, shouldered her sniper rifle, and sighted in on the base. The two scrutinized the challenge before them in silence.

Farnmir soon shifted her position to scope out the sandcrawler, the obvious weakness in the base’s defenses. She sniffed as she scrutinized the hulking colossus of time-ravaged scrap and muttered, “What do you think?”

Vhetin booted up a penetrating heat scan and saw a sizable force of beings clustered inside the compound; they showed up on his display as blobs of reddish-orange against the cold blue of their surroundings. “I count twenty, maybe thirty guards inside the compound and fifteen outside. Plus... nine snipers scattered about. Even with reinforcements from the militia, we’re pretty heavily outnumbered. And you know Kassh won’t go down without a fight.”

She nodded, still squinting through the sniper scope. “But we still have surprise on our side. And these aren’t exactly top-grade mercenaries. They look like local thugs to me. A few Gammoreans, a couple Devoranians, a Djorak or two. Nothing too troublesome.”

She glanced over at him and cocked her head with an impudent smirk. “Or are you afraid of a little dust-up?”

He was about to shoot back an equally sharp remark when one of the compound’s spotlight beams pivoted in their direction. They both pressed themselves close to the ground as the light passed within two meters of them. It hesitated near their position, long enough to make Vhetin worry, then slowly moved on.

Once they were shrouded in darkness again, both hunters sighed in relief and Vhetin muttered, “Whatever plan we form, this is definitely going to be a challenge.”

 Farnmir nodded silently in agreement, pulling the rifle back and sliding back down the ridge. The Mandalorian stayed a few moments more, recording everything he could of the base. When his HUD informed him that his scanners had finished their inspection of the area, he pulled a tiny vidcam from his belt and set it up in the sand next to him. He half-buried for camouflage, careful to keep the recorder eye uncovered, then slowly backed down the ridge as well. The camera booted up with a beep in his ear and linked with his helmet systems, giving him a tactically advantageous view of the complex from afar.

Jay was waiting below with Massano and the militia troopers massing for the attack. All were silent and composed; commendable, given the severity of the odds stacked against them. They all glanced up as Vhetin and Farnmir approached, clambering back down the sheer rock face.

“What’s the situation up there?” Jay was the first to ask.

“From what we can see, Kassh is dug in deeper than we thought,” Farnmir explained. She leaped from the wall and landed hard, kicking up a cloud of dust and sand as she hit the ground. “We counted fifteen heavily-armed guards patrolling the outermost perimeter of the compound. There are sniper towers with spotlights and an old Jawa sandcrawler they’re using for a sniper platform as well. He’s taken all the high ground in the area.”

Massano grunted. “What about infantry numbers?”

Farnmir knelt and drew a rough rectangle in the sand. “So this is the main building. It looks like a-”

Vhetin cleared his throat and interrupted, “Excuse me, but I’ve got a better layout of the base.”

He transferred data from the half-buried vid recorder to a holoprojector on his belt. When he tossed the device into the sand, it sprang to life and displayed a 3D scan of the compound and its troops. The tiny holographic soldiers marched about on the holo, jumping back and forth as the hologram sputtered. The scan showed a collection of all seven buildings, linked around the single rectangular command center.

“I set up a holo-scanner along the ridge while we were scouting,” Vhetin explained. “The scanner sends out a real-time scan of the area and transmits it to this projector. The image refreshes itself every quarter-second, so it’s as accurate as we’re going to get.”

“Fancy stuff for a freelance merc,” Massano growled, glaring at Vhetin. “Is that a toy from your Imp buddies?”

Jay looked like she was about to intervene on Vhetin’s behalf again. But one of the militia troopers beat her to it, nudging Massano’s arm with a smirk and saying, “You gotta keep up with the times, boss, elseways we’re never gonna make a good militia.”

Another trooper shoved the first in the back and said, “Yeah, as if you had any clue what the Mando just said either.”

“Stay focused,” Massano growled. “We’ve got a job to do here.”

Farnmir, meanwhile, was kneeling next to the hologram and studying the readout of the base intently. She narrowed her eyes and tapped her fingers against her thighs in a sharp _rap, rap, rap_ motion. Her head was cocked to one side in curious scrutiny and her eyes darted back and forth across the hologram.

Jay noticed the other woman’s intense stare. “What are you seeing?”

Farnmir traced her finger along the perimeter of the holographic compound till she stopped at the line of wrecked speeders and the snipers dug in there. “It looks like they’ve got razor-wire barricades set up along this area all around the compound,” she said, “but the snipers are concentrated on the west - our side - since there’s no settlements for hundreds of miles in any other direction.”

“Why not just attack from the other directions then?” Massano asked. “We can circle the base and hit them from behind.”

Vhetin shook his head. “Kassh mined the desert for at least half a mile in every other direction. It’s a funnel, so that the only possible way to attack is through Sniper Alley. Gives his sharpshooter’s a chance to hone their target practice.”

“Oh.”

It was true; the barren stretch of land was dotted here and there with the bones of those who had tried to run the gap and failed. Akk dogs, Tusken Raiders, Jawas, and even the husk of a juvenile Krayt Dragon had all tried to penetrate the defense and failed.

“But,” Farnmir continued, “if we can cover the thirty-meter stretch of land between here and there, those wrecked speeders should provide good cover for us. We can set up some sharpshooters of our own and take out those spotlight towers while we’re at it.”

“We turn his own defenses against him,” Vhetin added. “If we control that one stretch of the perimeter, our target has nowhere to go. He’s trapped in the facility, just waiting to be captured.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jay said suddenly, kneeling next to Farnmir. She pointed at the gap as well, staring at the rolls of razor-wire that had been arranged in a checkerboard pattern across the sand. “That’s not going to work. I know this pattern. It’s a standard Imperial defensive setup.”

“How do you know that?” Massano asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Former Imperial navy pilot,” she said, waving one hand dismissively. “Long story. But see those rolls of razor-wire? They aren’t just for decoration. They’re meant to mark where they’ve buried plasma mines.”

Several members of the militia began murmuring among themselves and cursing. With good reason too; stepping on a plasma mine was a bad way to go. The flash-heated explosion could vaporize a man to ash in the blink of an eye. Even Vhetin, in his near-indestructible Mandalorian battle armor, wasn’t safe from such a device.

Jay hastily added, “We should be okay if we can just, you know… jump over the razor wire.”

“If we can _jump over the razor wire_?” one of the militia troops demanded with an incredulous scoff. “We aren’t kriffing gungans, lady. I dunno if _you_ can jump five feet straight up in the air, but I sure as hell can’t.”

She glanced at Vhetin, knowing full well that he was more than capable of such a feat. But she didn’t say anything on the matter and let her partner reassure the uneasy troopers.

“Let me worry about the snipers,” Vhetin said. “I’ll head in first, neutralize the perimeter guard, and see if I can’t deactivate the triggers on those mines and clear the entire field in one swoop. You’ll still be screwed if one of them catches a stray shot and detonates, but it’ll still be much safer.”

Farnmir frowned. “There’s still the problem of the snipers on the sandcrawler.”

Vhetin gestured to himself. “Seriously? _Mandalorian,_ remember? We’re the ones who made jetpacks a trending thing in this profession, you know.”

But Jay quickly shook her head. “No, your pack is too loud and too bright. If you use it to get up there, it’ll alert the guards and ruin our cover.”

 _Shab._ His jaw tightened, but he couldn’t deny the truth in her words. His pack was useful, but he would light up like a Nar Shadda billboard as soon as he used it. And they weren’t exactly quiet; even the stealthiest models roared like a rampaging reek with a throat cold. In the silence of the desert night, they would probably hear his pack all the way back in Anchorhead.

He scowled behind his helmet and folded his arms “I hope you have a better suggestion.”

“I think so,” she replied, kneeling next to Farnmir in front of the hologram. “How good are you at rappelling from of a moving vehicle?”

He frowned. “I’ve jumped out of a few dropships in my time, if that’s what you’re asking.”

She pointed to the sandcrawler on the holo. “If we take one of our ships in low with the engines on minimum burn, we should be able to sneak past the perimeter defenses. Does the _Tough Luck_ have any stealth hardware?”

Farnmir silently shook her head, still staring at the holo.

Jay looked up to Vhetin. “What about _Void_?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can think of a few systems. It was designed as a blockade runner.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged, not entirely comfortable with revealing his ship’s many secret capabilities. But it was critical to the mission, so he reluctantly said, “She has audio dampers installed into the ion engines that can run completely silent for up to half an hour at a time. It’s not foolproof, but it’ll reduce the sound she makes to barely a whisper.”

He glanced around him and noted that the wind had begun to pick up since they clambered down behind the ridge. “And if this breeze keeps up, it should mask her approach nicely.”

Farnmir nodded, looking impressed despite her obvious efforts to conceal it. “That could work.”

Jay glanced around at the others. “Everyone else happy with the plan? Let the high-flying Mando go in first and clear a path for us normal spuds?”

A chorus of affirmations and agreements. Vhetin knelt next to his partner and turned his full attention to the hologram.

“All right, Jay,” he said. “Walk us through it.”

~~~~~~~~

**Thirty minutes later**

Vhetin stood on the exit ramp of his ship, his hand clutching tight to the safety bar above his head. The desert whipped past him far below, almost too fast to see. The deck trembled under his feet, but the engines only made a gentle buzzing noise barely audible over the wind that screamed by. _Void_ ’s engine dampeners were in full effect now, and the ship was almost fully silent.

He tapped the comm unit mounted on his helmet. “You have your ears on, Kalyn?”

“ _Ears on_ ,” she confirmed. “ _Getting squeamish?_ _”_

“It’ll take a lot more than this to make me squeamish,” he replied. “Time to drop?”

“ _Soon. I_ _’ll give you the word._ _You sure you can jump out of this thing without alerting the guards?_ _”_

“Covert infiltration is my specialty. Don’t worry about me.”

“ _If you say so. Just do me a favor and let some get to their ships. I would be disappointed if you didn_ _’t leave any of the fight for me.”_

“No promises.” His eyes squinted against the rushing airborne sand that assaulted his helmet visor and his _kama_ flapped wildly in the wind. The huge sandcrawler was swiftly approaching, lit from below by powerful spotlights. He could also make out the snipers, lying in prone position and scanning the area laid out before them with their rifles.

Vhetin, with his black-gray armor, was all but invisible against the dark sky and his ship glided through the air with little more than a grumble from the engines. As they approached, the sound died completely and the darkness around him was silent save for the wind rushing past his helmet’s audio receptors.

In the tense few moments before he dropped, he went over the plan one more time.

“We’ll need an eye in the sky,” Jay had said. “Someone who can provide air support and keep watch for Kassh at the same time.”

“I can do that,” Farnmir spoke up suddenly. Her gaze was still fixed on the hologram, obviously memorizing every detail she could. “Once we get inside the perimeter, my sniper rifle will be pretty much useless anyway.”

She had looked over at Vhetin with a smirk. “Unless you’re afraid I’ll get my cooties all over your fancy ship?”

He hadn’t been excited about the plan, but he knew it was the best they had. So he’d agreed, and now Farnmir was sitting behind _Void_ _’s_ joystick. The deck jerked beneath his feet as the ship came to a jarring halt. She floated noiselessly over the top of the sandcrawler, ready for him to make a quick departure. He hooked the clip of his rappel line to the bar above his head, throwing some of the line out ahead of him.

 _One of these days_ , he thought with a grimace, _I_ _’m gonna break my neck doing one of these crazy stunts._

Before he could think better of it, he leaped forward into open air. He plummeted in freefall for a few heart-stoppingly long moments, his kama billowing out around him. Then the line snapped taught and he swung back over the top of the sandcrawler. His boots hit the ground silently; before they started he’d traded out his usual combat _cetare_   for soft-soled infiltrator shoes.

The rappel line was detached and reeled back into the ship within the blink of an eye. Another blink and the shadowy ship rushed silently off into the dark like a wraith, leaving him alone. The snipers ahead didn’t hear anything; their attention was focused elsewhere.

He approached the unsuspecting snipers, creeping toward them and pulling his specially-made silenced pistol. Once this happened, he would have only moments before a full-on firefight broke out. If he dawdled, he would most definitely be caught. He didn’t fancy learning how Kassh treated his prisoners, especially given his particular history with the gangster.

Thankfully, precision and speed was his specialty. He quickly and quietly dispatched all three snipers with shots from his silenced pistol and they slumped silently over their rifles.

He didn’t pause to survey his handiwork, immediately stepping up to the edge of the sandcrawler and surveying the ground below. He was standing on the edge of at least a hundred foot drop, the ground below so far away he almost seemed to stand at the peak of a mountain. Such a fall would certainly kill a normal man.

Thankfully, he was not a normal man.

He didn’t allow himself to hesitate; hesitation allowed for the invasion of fear. Instead, he gritted his teeth and stepped off the edge before his body could seize up with the onslaught of self-preservation instinct. The terrifying, too-long feeling of utter weightlessness flooded his senses again as he plummeted down through the dark. He could see the ground rushing up to meet him and could see his HUD counting down his altitude so fast it was a blur.

 _Don_ _’t fire the jetpack_ , he thought. _Don_ _’t fire the jetpack, don’t fire the jetpack… oh kriff this is going to hurt._

He collided hard with the ground, unable to stop a breathless _oof_ from escaping his lungs. Fiery pain erupted instantly in both his knees and he heard something let out a distressingly loud pop. The force of his fall continued to push him down to the ground and he tucked himself into a tight roll to shed excess momentum. He rolled a few feet and sprawled faceplate-first in the sand.

 _I was right,_ he thought with a grimace as he fought to catch his breath. _That kriffing hurt._

He tried to roll over onto his back and a sharp spike of pain instantly lanced up his leg. He’d definitely injured himself in the fall, maybe even broken something. He curled up into a tight ball and clutched at his knee, the source of the jarring pain. He rolled himself onto his back and grasped the offending joint with both hands, grimacing at the throbbing agony.

 _Yep,_ he thought as he felt the damage. _Definitely dislocated. This is not going to be fun..._

He turned off his helmet’s external audio speakers and grasped his throbbing knee. Then with a sharp twist and a pull, he shoved as hard as he could and the bone slipped back into its socket. He heard a wet _snick_ and the pain tripled, consuming his entire leg up to the thigh in red-hot fury. His back arched and he screamed as the feeling coursed through his body like wildfire. Thankfully his voice was muted within his armor; to anyone on the outside, he would simply be writhing silently in the sand.

He eventually collapsed into a heap, shaking from the adrenaline and the aftershock of such discomfort. After only a moment to regain his composure, he grunted and pushed himself back to his knees. With a huff, he clambered to his feet and wobbled only a little before he regained his balance. The pain was already fading to a dull throb, easily ignored in light of the coming battle and easy to treat once it was all over. He shook off the pain and silently limped forward, pressing his back against a supply crate.

He reloaded his pistol and peeked out from behind cover. The rest of the snipers were just ahead, their backs to him. He prepared to attack, quickly relaying the plan in his head again.

“Once I’m down there,” he had said, “I won’t be able to send out messages to you guys until I’m finished with the snipers. They’ll be monitoring local comm channels.”

“How long do you need?” Jay had asked him.

He had quickly calculated. There were nine snipers total - three on the sandcrawler and six by the barricades. Eliminating all of them wasn’t impossible, but it would take precious time.

“Five minutes,” he’d concluded. “Tops.”

“If we don’t hear from you after six,” Kalyn had said, “the rest of us will know the plan is a bust and bug out. Make sure you make the deadline, or this whole plan goes up in smoke.”

He checked the chronometer on his HUD display. He had a little less than two and a half minutes left. Plenty of time as long as-

“Hey,” came a voice behind him. “Who the kriff’re are you?”

He spun and saw a human boy, no older than nineteen, standing in front of him. He quickly moved his pistol out of sight. He had no desire to shoot a kid.

He wracked his mind furiously for a plausible excuse. He mimicked a strong Corellian accent and drawled, “Ah, well ya see, the boss-man brought yours truly on as a las’ minute addition, yuh know? Big-shot merc from C’rellia like me was such a good choice, he jus’ couldn’t pass up the chance. I jus’ got here an hour ago.”

The boy narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the tiny field pistol on his belt. He licked his lips, eyes darting nervously between him and the sandcrawler. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I believe you.”

It was easy to see he needed a different tactic. So he grabbed the kid by the back of the head and pulled him close, abandoning his accent. “You want to get killed, kid? If so, keep talking.”

He shoved the kid back and looked around the corner of the crate again. No one in sight.

“Things are going to get real ugly around here in less than two minutes,” he hissed to the kid. “Get out while you can. If you raise the alarm, I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself.”

When the kid still didn’t move, Vhetin discharged his silenced pistol at his feet. He jumped and stumbled back, turning and taking off in the opposite direction. After a few moments, he disappeared into the darkness.

Vhetin turned back to the other snipers lying ahead. He tensed, then walked out from behind the crate as calmly as he could manage with his wounded leg. One of the snipers heard his boots scraping against the sand and turned towards him.

“Hey,” the sniper called as Vhetin drew nearer. “You that new guy from Mos Espa?”

Vhetin shot him in the head. The other snipers gasped in surprise and tried vainly to bring their unwieldy rifles to bear on him. He quickly dealt with all six of them opponents, barely flinching as he pulled the trigger again and again. By the time the last sniper fell twitching to the ground, his timer read almost a single minute left.

He spotted a boxy comm unit near the barricade, a unit the snipers had been using to listen in on chatter around the base. He crushed it beneath one boot heel. Once done, he activated his helmet-mounted comlink.

“This is Grayscale,” he said, using the code name in case anyone else was listening in. “Targets neutralized.”

“ _Copy that_ ,” Jay’s voice said over the speakers in his helmet. “ _Get to work deactivating the mines and we_ _’ll be right there._ ”

Vhetin nodded to himself and set off at a jog for the tower that housed the security console. It was guarded by two of Kassh’s troopers, armed with rifles and sonic pistols. Vhetin quickly scaled the ladder, raised his pistol, and fired up through the wooden trapdoor in the floor. His shot blasted through one trooper’s foot, and the man yelled in pain.

Vhetin flipped up over the rail of the tower and caught the other in the face with his boot heels. The trooper grunted in pain and surprise and fell back over the edge of the tower, plummeting out of sight to the ground below. He hit with a quiet _crunch_ that made Vhetin wince. Meanwhile the other trooper had raised his rifle, still balancing on his single uninjured foot.

Vhetin grabbed the barrel of the rifle and yanked it away. He twisted the rifle to the right, bracing his hand on the troopers’ arm and breaking it cleanly with a hard wrench. The trooper was about to scream again, but Vhetin snatched the sides of the head and drove the man’s face into his knee.

Skull and armored kneecap connected with a _crack_ , and the trooper’s eyes rolled back in his head. The trooper flailed for a half-second, then crumpled to the floor. Vhetin suddenly stood in silence, breathing heavily. The entire fight had lasted less than five seconds.

Letting out a soft breath, he cracked his neck and turned to the security console.

_“What other defenses do they have set up?” Massano had said, gesturing to the hologram with a frown._

_“Just some mid-level anti-infantry turrets,” Farnmir had reported. “Vhetin can shut those down while he’s deactivating the mines.”_

_Jay had looked up at him, worry evident in her gaze._ _“You’ve got to be quick, Vhetin, otherwise the rest of us aren’t going to know what’s going on, and we’ll abort the mission.”_

_He_ _’d nodded agreement. “I know. I’ll get those mines down in time.”_

He inserted a datachip into the port on the security console and unleashed a powerful hacking program, courtesy of Jaing Skirata back on Mandalore. The program raced through the security system, targeting the safeties on the minefield and the turret controls at Vhetin‘s command.

Within moments, power to the base’s security systems had been disabled. The lights near his position flickered slightly as the excess power was diverted to their systems, but nothing more happened. Good.

He activated his comm again. “Grayscale here. The minefield is down. If that’s not a red carpet...”

“ _Acknowledged_ ,” Massano’s deep voice replied. “ _The militia_ _’s incoming. We’re heading to your position._ ”

Vhetin saw shadowy figures sneaking across the barren gap from the ridge, heading straight for his position. He hopped nimbly down from the four-meter tower and strode toward them as they approached the row of wrecked speeders.

Jay and Massano slowed to a halt, crouching behind the speeders and covering the area with their pistol and rifle, respectively. Massano and his militia troopers had painted their faces with clay, making them look monstrous and otherworldly. Jay, by comparison, looked very out of place.

“What’s the situation?” the militia leader demanded.

“All the snipers and turrets are neutralized,” Vhetin reported, “and power to the security systems will be tied up for years before they can clean out their system cache.”

“They won’t have the time,” Massano growled. “We‘re finishing off these _schuttas_ tonight.”

Vhetin turned toward the building. There had been no sign that Kassh’s thugs knew they were about to come under attack, and that was making him nervous. Everything was quiet, and quiet during an attack was a bad sign.

He shook his head. “Step up the plan. Massano, come with me. Jay and your militia can secure the area.”

Massano nodded and turned to his troops. “Set up a secure perimeter around this compound. Any of Kassh’s thugs that escape us are going to be flushed straight to you. Can you handle that?”

One of the troopers grinned and said, “Sure thing boss. We’ll even wrap ‘em up nice and put bows on their heads. It’ll be like your birthday all over again.”

The rest of the militia chuckled and nodded in agreement. Massano nodded back in encouragement before moving to follow Vhetin. Jay shot her partner a jaunty salute before following them.

“And don’t forget about Kassh,” Vhetin reminded them as they spread apart. “Don’t kill any Twi’leks. You may be here to get him off your planet, but Jay and I are here to take him in alive.”

There were scattered murmurs of approval, a few nodded heads; not exactly the enthusiasm he’d been looking for. It would have to do.

“Hawkbat?” he said over the comm. “Are you still airborne?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” came Kalyn Farnmir’s reply. “ _And I_ _’m ready for a quick pickup when you have Kassh in custody._ ”

“Good,” Vhetin said. “Stay on station and provide us with any air support you can. We’re going to get this show on the road.”

“ _Copy that._ ”

He turned to Jay now, nodding to her in encouragement. She smiled back – a little nervously – and said, “Wish me luck?”

“You won’t need it,” he reassured her. “But be careful. You’ve had more than your fair share of close calls already, and Kassh seems to think you’re weaker than you really are.”

“He’s in for a rude awakening,” Jay scoffed.

“That he is. But if you need help, just call me and I’ll be there. _K_ _’oyacyi,_ Jay.”

It was a literal command more than a farewell: _come back alive._

She smiled, understanding the command. “Thanks, Stripes.”

Then she turned and jogged away towards the transport lot, pulling her Verpine pistol as she did. Vhetin watched her go, then headed off to his own assignment; securing the large command center with Massano. He unclipped his saber-staff from his jetpack and flexed his fists around the smooth shaft of the weapon in anticipation.

One last hurdle, and Kassh would be down for good.

~~~~~~~~

Jay stood in the dark, her eyes carefully scanning the surrounding area. It was her job to make sure Kassh - or any of his thugs, for that matter - didn’t make a run for the transports and escape. If he did, she would stop him.

As she waited, the memory of her plan returned to her. She felt a swell of pride, knowing that this whole operation was more or less her idea.

“What next, Jay?” Vhetin had asked her.

“Well,” she’d said, wracking her mind to assemble her ideas into a coherent plan. “Once the militia attack the compound, Kassh will probably do one of two things: tuck himself down in a well-guarded area with enough supplies and ammo to withstand our assault for hours…”

Massano grunted. “He certainly has the numbers for it.

“Or,” Jay continued, “he’ll run for a transport.”

Vhetin had nodded slowly, obviously impressed. She had blushed slightly at the praise and continued, “So we’ll have to split up while we’re on the ground. One of us will have to secure any vehicles or transports while the other does the legwork to chase Kassh down.

“There’s a good side and bad side to both positions,” she’d explained, thinking through her plan carefully. “Whoever’s inside the compound will be open to more fire, but they’ll have the element of surprise on their side. Whoever’s guarding the transport lot won’t have as much fire, but anyone trying to head that direction will be cautious of any other attackers.”

She turned to her partner. “Any preferences, Stripes?”

“I’m going after Kassh,” was the predictable response. “I’ve got a score to settle.”

She hadn’t been sure whether to count herself lucky that she had the transport lot.

A Tusken Raider howled in the distance and she shuddered at the haunting, barking sound. She was alone in the transport lot, pretending to be a simple hired gun loitering on her deathstick break. Despite her casual appearance, it didn’t stop her from thinking, _Hurry up, Vhetin. This place gives me the creeps._

The transport lot was a large square of flat rock and sand, situated a few meters behind the compound’s easternmost building. The large Tatooine moons bathed the transport lot in an eerie yellowish light, throwing menacing shadows into the darkness.

There were several cargo speeders and a single space-worthy freighter, all painted a dull red and bearing the insignia of what Jay presumed was a local shipping company; Kassh probably used the company as a front for his activities in Anchorhead.

Jay shuddered again and activated her comm to listen in on everyone else’s chatter. The sound of other people speaking was a slight comfort, making her feel less alone and defenseless.

“ _Grayscale here_ ,” came Vhetin’s voice, tinged with a sharp tone of military formality, “ _calling Krayt Dragon. I_ _’m at the front door. Is your entrance clear?_ ”

“ _Affirmative_ ,” Massano replied, just as formal. “ _Placing breach charge in five._ ”

“ _Copy that_ ,” Vhetin said. “ _Salacious Crumb, are you clear?_ ”

Massano’s lieutenant, dug in with the rest of the militia, said, “ _Yes sirs. The perimeter is established and we_ _’re ready to catch whatever poor sods you flush our way._ ”

Jay tensed as she envisioned Vhetin and Massano, preparing to shake the stingerbee nest and alert Kassh and his troops to the imminent attack. She imagined Vhetin flanking the entrance, placing a circular det charge in the center of the door, performing all the actions she’d drilled for months.

A small part of her felt a twinge of resentment that she was stuck guarding the transports while Vhetin got the exciting job. But she quickly shook it off and concentrated on the job at hand. After all, it was her duty to ensure that Kassh didn't escape them again. It was easily the most important job of anyone here.

She remembered what Vhetin had said just before they’d moved out to execute their plan. As they broke up, preparing for their final assault, Vhetin had pulled her off to one side.

“What is it?” she’d asked. “If this is about the plan-”

“It isn’t,” Vhetin had interrupted. “I’m actually very impressed. I can see that I’ve taught you well.”

She had nodded, flushing slightly at the praise. But he wasn’t done just yet. He folded his arms and glanced over his shoulder, watching the militia troops moving to their positions. “What I want to talk to you about is your part in all of this. Are you sure you can handle this?”

“Securing the vehicles?” she had replied. “Yeah. I actually think I got the easy part-”

He interrupted again. “I’m talking about storming the base. This isn’t going to be like Rhen Var. We’ll actually be in a coordinated combat situation. A straight-up war.”

He had gestured to the pistol on her hip. “Are you certain that you can pull the trigger if necessary? To kill if pressed?”

She had nodded, putting a hand on the blaster. “If it means completing the mission, then yes.”

He had stared at her for a heartbeat through that faceless T-visor. For a moment, she wondered if he was going to call her bluff. But had nodded slowly. “I believe you. But before this night is over, you’re going to have to use your weapon and shoot to kill.”

“In a combat situation, you need to be able to do anything necessary to survive,” she had said, quoting one of his many lessons back at him. “Even if you have to do something terrible.”

She knew these things were easier said than done, but there was only one way for her to learn. And she knew that if push came to shove, she would definitely pull the trigger. There was too much at stake here; not just the bounty reward, but her life.

He had nodded, obviously satisfied, and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Jay. I think you’ll do fine. Just be careful.”

“I always am. You worry too much.”

Farnmir had stepped up to them, obviously with something to say. She stopped short when she saw them.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Vhetin shook his head, taking a step back. “Not at all. Just some last-minute briefing.”

“Good,” the older woman said. “Because our window of opportunity is going to be pretty small. We need to get moving.”

Vhetin had nodded and turned to follow her back to his ship. He looked back at Jay once more and called, “Good luck, Jay. _Ret_ _’urcye mhi._ ”

“Yeah,” she’d said. “Same to you, Stripes.”

The muffled _boom_ of a breach charge exploding roused her from her ruminations. The sound split the silence around her and echoed away into the night. After a moment, a second explosion rang through the night air as Massano’s door charge blew.

They had now begun their attack. There was no going back now.

The explosion faded away into silence and everything was still once more. Jay frowned in confusion, waiting on an inevitable counterattack. She’d thought there would be... _more._ The screams of blaster bolts ringing through the air, the flashes of weapon discharges, the neon blue blaze of Vhetin’s saber-staff. But there was nothing that she could see or hear. Just silent darkness.

 _That_ _’s not right,_ she thought with growing unease. _Did something go wrong?_

She shifted her weight and listened for any chatter over the comm. If something had gone amiss, she told herself, Vhetin would say something. Wouldn’t he?

“ _Grayscale, this is Hawkbat_ ,” Kalyn said suddenly over the comm, making Jay jump. “ _What_ _’s going on down there?_ ”

The comm channel hissed static long enough to make her worry again. Then Vhetin’s quiet voice said, “ _He_ _’s not here._ ”

“ _What?_ ”

“ _Kassh_!” the  Mandalorian snapped. His tone was one of unbridled rage and something heavy crashed in the background of his transmission. She’d never heard her partner so angry before. “ _He_ _’s not here! The center room has a bunch of droids!_ ”

“But your scan… it picked up the droids?”

Her question was met with furious silence.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” she quickly added. “Durge said he‘d be here, and there’s evidence of Midnight Ultraviolet activity in the area. If he’s not here, then where—”

The world exploded white as spotlights snapped on around the entire compound, flooding the area with blinding illumination. Jay threw an arm in front of her eyes and let out a shout of surprise. She staggered back, taking cover from the light behind a bulky cargo speeder. Her comm was suddenly filled with chatter.

“ _Enemy contacts! Enemy contacts!_ ”

“ _Krayt Dragon, get down!_ ”

“ _No shot! No shot!_ ”

“ _What the_ -”

Then Massano’s powerful voice cut through the rest.

“ _Ambush!_ ”

~~~~~~~~

**Two minutes earlier**

The cold night air seemed to dig into Vhetin skin, even through his flak vest and internal heat compensators. It wasn’t as bad as the deadly chill of Rhen Var, but it was irritating and disconcerting all the same. He could see puffs of vapor warming the air with every exhalation from the rest of the team. He saw with no small measure of comfort that the troopers to a man showed elevated heart rates; they were clearly just as nervous as he was.

He kept his head low as he crept past the assorted collection of buildings, making sure to stay away from windows and doors - anywhere someone could jump out at him. His heart was pounding in his ears, adrenaline making his breath come in quiet gasps. He always got like this during the final push of a hunting mission, when everything was on the line. Only a fool walked face-first into a firefight without some anxiety at the battle to come.

“ _Krayt Dragon here_ ,” Massano whispered over the comm. “ _I_ _’ve almost reached the back entrance._ ”

“Copy that,” Vhetin replied. “Tusken Squad, come in. How’re you guys doing back there?”

“ _No sign of movement_ ,” came the response from the militia troopers.

Vhetin nodded, satisfied that things were unfolding according to plan. He skirted around a nearby spotlight and flexed his grip on his saber-staff, his sharp eyes darting around the area. Unless the schematics on his HUD were incorrect – which was unlikely – he should be approaching the front entrance door.

As if on cue, he rounded a corner and the blue-lit door came into view, the lights humming quietly as he approached.

“Grayscale,” he said, “calling Krayt Dragon. I’m at the front door. About to knock. Is your entrance clear?”

“ _Affirmative_ ,” Massano replied over comms. “ _Placing breach charge in five._ ”

“Copy that,” Vhetin said. He blinked at a flashing icon on his HUD and switched comm channels. “Salacious Crumb, are you clear?”

“ _Yes sirs_ ,” Massano’s lieutenant said. “ _Perimeter is established and we_ _’re ready to catch whatever poor sods you flush our way._ ”

Vhetin pressed his back against the edge of the door, like he’d done so many times before on so many battlefields, set against so many targets. He made sure to glance up and scan the area for enemy contacts as he pulled the det charge from his belt. Normally, he’d have someone else ready to toss in a grenade or watching his six while he set the det charge. But one didn’t always have such luxuries, and the other troopers were otherwise occupied, preparing to breach from other weak points in the building’s defenses; windows, doors, ventilation shafts, the like.

He slowly peeled off the adhesive tape from the bottom of the det charge, tossing it aside as he tensed, ready for action. As always, the gravity of such a situation was not lost on him. These few moments before a breach were always the most intense of a hunt. There was no telling what was on the other side of that door. These few moments may well be his last.

_Three_ _… Two… One!_

He let out a sharp breath, slapped the breach charge on the door, and turned away from the blast. There was a moment of shocked silence, as if the desert itself was left aghast at his audacity. Then the charge blew with an thunderous _pow_ and the door blasted inward, heralded on a scream of tortured metal.

There was no time to waste. He ignited his saber-staff and threw himself into the room beyond. He heard Massano’s breach charge explode soon after as he raised is saber in anticipation of an attack. His eyes raked over the interior in search of which target he’d fell first with his hissing aqua blade.

No such target was in sight. And no attack came. All that lay beyond the ravaged door was a dark and empty room, lit by the blue glow of his ignited saber. There was no sign of movement, no sign that someone else had beaten them to the prize, no sign that _anyone_ had entered this building in weeks. There were no troopers, no Kassh, no... anything. Not even furniture or computer terminals to show that it was a functioning area of the base.

 _What the hell is going on?_ His instincts screamed that something wasn’t right, that something was out of place and this whole operation was blown. But he couldn’t be sure just yet. So, against his better judgment, he raised his staff and crept deeper into the darkness.

“Massano,” he hissed into his comm. “What’ve you got?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” the militia leader replied with a voice almost as tight and cautious as his own. “ _Nothing but empty hallways. What the hell is happening in here?_ ”

“I don’t know,” Vhetin said quietly. “But I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”

He made his way, step after step, through the empty halls with his saber held at the ready. The synthetic hum of the blade seemed to invade the silence more and more with every second, filling his ears and drowning out all other sounds. He turned a corner and found another empty hallway, dominated by a brightly-lit door that blocked the entrance to the next room. If his schematics and scanning equipment were functioning correctly, all of Kassh’s men were clustered in there. And after the resounding thunder of the breach charges, they all knew they’d soon have company.

He stepped up to the door and pressed his helmet mounted audio receptor close to it, like pressing an ear to the surface to hear the room beyond. He boosted reception to maximum, but didn’t hear anything out of place; the clank of the ventilation system, the skitter of tiny desert insects in the walls, and the distant whistle of the breeze across the sand outside. No heartbeats, no shuffle of feet, and no voices. In fact, there was no sound of life inside at all.

His sense of unease mounted. There were a lot of hostile contacts on the other side of that door. If they were really there, they would make _some_ noise no matter how careful they were trying to be. He moved back with a scowl as he pulled another breach charge from the pack on his belt. He’d need more of an explosion this time; the door must have some kind of advanced soundproofing tech built into it. It was the only explanation.

“Grayscale here,” he reported as he pulled the adhesive tape from the back of the charge. “I’m at the door to the central room. Planting breach charge now.”

“ _Same here_.”

He attached the charge to the door and moved against the wall a few feet away. He had time to count to three before the charge detonated with a world-shattering _ka-THOOM!_ The doors were enveloped in a cloud of yellow-red and were torn right off their hinges, flying into the room beyond with a deafening clatter and a roar of an explosion.

He ignited his pike once more and jumped inside, whirling the weapon in front of him and slashing at the first being he saw. The thug’s arm hit the ground and twitched as Vhetin stepped over it and planted a boot in another human’s face. Massano’s breach charge detonated too, blowing open the doors on the far side of the room, and the militia leader charged into the fray. He and his accompanying troopers opened up with full auto blaster fire with a a chorus of battle cries. Kassh’s thugs fell where they stood, clutching at their chests or arms or legs.

Vhetin cut another thug’s arms off, using the momentum to bring him to face another. As he pivoted, his _kama_ whirling out around him as he spun, he slashed horizontally and sliced another thug in half at the waist. The top half of the man fell to the ground with a shower of sparks and he pivoted on one foot to slash upward at another-

He stopped mid-attack and looked back to the disemboweled thug. Massano stopped as well, staring at what was left of the dead human. The battle — if one could even call it that, since Kassh’s thugs hadn’t fired a single shot of their own — froze in surprise and disbelief.

Sparks were showering from the thug’s disembodied torso, the edges of his clothing glowing red-hot from the blade of pure energy that had ended his life. The two halves were still moving, twitching and spasming. Metal heels and metal fingers scraped against the ground and a harsh synthetic buzz escaped from a sparking mechanical vocoder.

Vhetin stared at the death throes of the droid at his feet, his heart sinking with sudden understanding. Then he yanked off a nearby man’s hood, revealing angular metal plates and wide visual receptors that glowed yellow in the dark. He stepped away and ripped off the helmet from another trooper, standing stock still and staring at him. Another droid. And another. And another.

The Mandalorian felt an icy-cold vein of fury snake through his mind. _Droids. Kassh_ _’s base was staffed with_ droids _. We_ _’ve been played._

He walked through the room, yanking off mask after mask and revealing nothing but droids. Every one of the thugs he’d slain were in fact mechanical units, programmed to endlessly amble around the area. They were bait, nothing more.

“ _Grayscale, this is Hawkbat_ ,” Farnmir said suddenly over the comm. “ _What_ _’s going on down there?_ ”

Vhetin shook his head in disgust. “He’s not here.”

Jay’s voice came over the comm, shot through with disbelief. “ _What?_ ”

“Kassh!” Vhetin snapped as he shoved over a nearby droid with sudden violence. “He’s not here! The center room has a bunch of droids!”

“ _But_ _…”_ Jay paused. _“But your scan… it picked up the droids?”_

He was too busy fuming and shoving over another droid to answer.

“ _That doesn_ _’t make any sense_ ,” Jay said. “ _Durge said he_ _’d be here, and there’s evidence of Midnight Ultraviolet activity in the area. If he’s not here, then where—_ ”

Suddenly all the lights in the facility snapped on. His helmet receptors easily picked up thumping footsteps approaching from all directions. He spun his pike as no fewer than ten heavily-armed thugs - _real_ thugs this time, not droids - stormed through the door.

“Hands in the air!”

“Drop your weapons!”

“Get on your knees you kriffers!”

Massano predictably bellowed, “ _Ambush!_ ” and opened fire, followed swiftly by the troopers under his command. Vhetin grasped his staff in both hands and jumped at the hostiles, slashing and punching at anything that moved. A hail of multicolored blaster bolts ricocheted off the walls and floor with loud _pings_ and _pows_ , and the discharge filled the air with ionized smoke.

Vhetin ducked under a vicious punch and brought his knee into his attacker’s gut, driving the man to his knees. He caught the man in the face with an armored boot, then slashed sideways and decapitated another. A twist, a pivot, and his blade carved a blaster rifle in half before reversing, pulling, and taking the shooter’s hands off at the wrists. Strong arms grabbed him from behind and dragged him back, away from the battle, and he struggled against the vise grip. His attacker was quite strong, but a quick burst of fire from his jetpack set the man’s legs on fire. He hopped away and left himself open to be skewered on the end of the Mandalorian’s saber pike.

A few of the thugs fell back temporarily and regrouped for a second assault, crowding around the doors and cutting off any chance for escape. Vhetin wasn’t about to let them prepare for another attack; he lowered his staff and seared them all with a roaring blast of fire from his flamethrower. They screamed and beat at their bodies, some falling to the floor and desperately rolling to put out the roaring flames.

Massano was keeping no fewer than six of Kassh’s goons at bay with little more than his rifle and his bare hands. Vhetin started forward to help him, but something stepped in his way. A second later that same something punched him in the chest hard enough to send him sprawling onto his back. Stars burst into his vision as his helmet collided hard with the duracrete floor and his head collided hard with the back of his helmet. Looking up through watering vision, he saw a huge human male with dark tattoos adorning his face and body.

“Wow,” Vhetin groaned, clambering back to his feet. “You are _really_ big.”

The man roared like an animal and beat his chest, shouting at Vhetin to bring it on. The Mandalorian stared at the huge man and sighed, dropping into a battle-ready stance. The giant roared again and lumbered forward, lashing out with another punch that would floor Vhetin where he stood. But the Mandalorian knew better this time. With a single swift motion, he dodged the clumsy blow, slashed with his lightsaber, and cut off the man’s head.

As the giant’s body slumped to the ground, Vhetin scowled and thought, Aruetii _stupidity. Doesn_ _’t matter how big you are, you’re still no match for a lightsaber._

It didn’t take long to wrangle their attackers and after a few more minutes of hectic fighting the battle was over. All of Kassh’s thugs lay sprawled across the floor, unconscious or dead. Massano was breathing hard, bleeding from several wounds on his chest and arms but otherwise unharmed. Vhetin’s head was throbbing from his fight with the giant, but he’d been more or less untouched by the rest of the fighting.

Massano clenched a fist and keyed open a comm channel to the rest of his team. “Crumb, come in. Come in, dammit!”

“ _Yeah, yeah, we hear you Krayt Dragon!_ ” came the voice of Massano’s lieutenant. “ _We_ _’re pinned down at the barricades! Someone kindly get off their ass to save ours!_ ”

“ _I_ _’ve got them_ ,” Jay said. “ _I can make it to the barricades if I run._ ”

“No,” Vhetin ordered as he jogged for the exit. “There’s every chance that Kassh is still here somewhere. We can’t afford to lose him now. Stay where you are.”

Jay cursed and Vhetin heard the sound of several close-proximity blaster bolts over the comm. “ _Okay, but... damn it, just get those troopers unstuck so some of them can help me out over here!_ ”

“I’m on it,” Vhetin said, dashing out into the open air once more. He heard the sound of blaster fire from the line of barricades and sprinted in that direction, the blue blade of his saber lighting up the darkness around him as fifteen more of Kassh’s thugs came into view.

But they weren’t alone. Standing with them were three hulking robots, arm cannons raised, shoulder-mounted grenade launchers roaring. Their chassis were protected by thick plates of polished chromium armor and their photoreceptors blazed out from armored heads that closely resembled stormtrooper helmets.

Mark-III Darktroopers. Imperial death droids. Vhetin cursed at the sight and his approach slowed a little. MUV wasn’t supposed to have this level of hardware. Kassh’s pockets were deep, but not so deep as to give him access to top-grade Imperial military tech!

He slid to a halt and hefted his weapon, preparing for a tough fight. He’d seen first-hand the destruction those droids could cause; a single unit could wade through an entire town’s population in hours, leaving no witnesses to the carnage left in its wake. And if Kassh had hacked these units and downloaded his own destruction protocols...

He sprinted forward before they could bring their weapons to bear on him, holding out his saber pike as he dashed past. The blade cut a single unit in half, severing it at the waist. The droid let out a very sentient-sounding scream as its top half fell to the ground with a clatter. Vhetin kept running as the two others swiveled to face him.

“ _Target priority override,_ ” one of them rumbled. “ _Initiate demolition procedures on target priority one, Mandalorian bounty hunter._ ”

“ _Affirmative_ ,” boomed the other and they both opened fire at him.

The ground at his feet was riddled with blaster bolts, superheated sand melted to glass all around him. He rolled and did his best to get ahead of their line of fire, but the ground exploded beneath him as one of the droids fired its shoulder cannon. He flew head-over-heels through the air, slamming face-first into a building wall and crashing into a smoldering heap in the sand. His saber-staff clattered to the ground a few meters away and its bright blue blade deactivated. He was thrown into darkness.

Pain washed through his chest. His vision swam dangerously, clouded by both exhaustion and the blood dripping into his eyes from the fresh cut on his forehead; his scalp had smashed hard against the front of his helmet when he hit the wall. He coughed and tried to sit up, holding his aching head. His HUD switched to low-light mode just as a Darktrooper’s huge foot descended on his chest and pinned him into the sand. He let out a shout of pain as the droid pushed hard, attempting to crush his chest in. He tried to prise the heavy metal boot from his torso, but even his considerable strength couldn’t dislodge the giant war droid from its perch.

Just when he began to feel the edges of his armor press worryingly hard into his flesh, the trooper looked up and cried, “ _Emergency! Emergency! Incoming hostile fire!_ ”

Then the Darktrooper was blasted away in a wash of flame and a crash of ripping metal. It flew through the darkness to land in a smoldering heap almost fifteen meters away. Vhetin collapsed back into the sand and sucked in a long and desperate breath, clutching his chest. When he’d gathered his strength and clambered to his knees, he saw Massano kneeling in the sand and hefting a bulky rocket launcher.

The Mandalorian nodded, all the thanks he could muster put into the gesture. Massano nodded back, almost imperceptibly. Together, they headed for the barricades and the troopers pinned down there.

~~~~~~~~

Things were not going well for Jay. She had managed to keep Kassh’s thugs at bay and had been doing a fairly good job of it. Humans and aliens alike fled her onslaught of blaster fire, unable to pin down her location in the darkness. She was just catching her breath between bouts, waiting for her assailants to muster the courage to attack her again.

Then the Darktrooper showed up.

She’d heard of the droids before, of course. During her navy days, rumor had infested the ranks of the Imperial fighting forces that they’d soon all lose their jobs to mechanized warriors. It was an old notion, borne of old memories of the Clone Wars and the devastating industrial power of the Separatists’ droid army.

“They’re already sending units into the field,” the rumors had said. “Droid soldiers made to look like stormtroopers. They’re stronger, faster, and more accurate than even a special forces veteran. And it won’t be long before the navy is treated the same and ‘bots will be behind the stick of a TIE fighter.”

As secret weapons went, this mysterious Darktrooper project seemed to be a decent one. But though Jay believed the Empire was more than capable of having plans for such a mechanized warrior, she had never really put much stock in the rumors. Now she was realizing just how foolish she truly was for ignoring such information. The Darktroopers were clearly _very_ real, and she was about to get an up-close and personal look.

Stomping from around the corner of a building, the massive droid took one look at her and targeted her with its full compliment of weapons. Its photoreceptors flashed red for a single breathless moment, then it opened fire. She had swiftly lost ground after that.

She was currently pinned down behind a cargo speeder, a barrage of incoming fire pinging off the metal by her head. She squeezed off shots at the hulking tank of a droid and the myriad thugs that were attempting to surround her, but her opportunities for resistance were swiftly dwindling. She’d been able to push back her opponents by sticking to the shadows and constantly staying on the move. Now such a tactic was tantamount to suicide. The Darktrooper would pick her off as soon as she stuck her head out.

“Vhetin!” she shouted into her comlink as sparks exploded over her head. Another shot and the entire speeder trembled and began to belch smoke. She cursed and sprinted to new cover, firing as best she could as blaster bolts stitched the ground behind her. A bolt just barely clipped her shoulder, tearing through her jacket and missing her by centimeters. Still, the force of the near-miss sent her sprawling into the dirt, sand spraying out around her as she scrambled into new cover.

She came to her hands and knees behind another speeder and heard the Darktrooper rumble, “ _Human female is classified priority one. Move in and search and destroy as necessary._ ”

 _Kark it all,_ she thought with a scowl as she reloaded her pistol. _I_ _’m really starting to hate Kassh for this whole assassination thing. Why does he want me dead anyway?_

“Vhetin,” she snapped into her hands-free comlink. “If you can hear me, I need backup at the vehicle lot _right now!_ ”

Her plea was met with nothing but static and the sounds of blasterfire from her partner’s end of the line. She cursed again and counted what ammunition she had left. If Vhetin wasn’t coming, she would just need to hold out herself.

She had two more clips of ammunition for her pistol, two thermal detonators, and a vibroblade down one boot. A loud curse flew wildly from her lips and she found herself envying Vhetin his armor and its dazzling array of weapons. Her current armaments were barely enough to scare off a grumpy dewback, let alone knock out a Darktrooper and the brutes attacking with it.

She heard footsteps approaching from one side of the speeder and she let her back thump against the side of the vehicle, pressing herself close for cover. She gripped her pistol and squeezed her eyes shut, thinking, _Okay... you_ _’ve got this. It’s no different than that Stunball match. Except that if you lose, you die. But don’t think about that. You can do this. You can_ do _this!_

It was the best pep talk she was going to manage. So she took a deep breath, then threw herself out from behind the speeder and opened fire. Three of Kassh’s thugs fell to the ground screaming within seconds, her aim sharp and true. She somersaulted over them without further thought and reloaded as she dashed down the aisles of vehicles, her entire body trembling with adrenaline. She could effortlessly remember everything Vhetin had taught her over the months, her every move honed by instinct and training. She could almost hear his teachings in her mind.

 _Scan your surroundings,_ he’d said. _Never let your guard down._

Even as she remembered that, she ran at a crouched run behind a speeder bike, picking off targets as soon as they presented themselves and tossing her grenades at clusters of enemies. She took down three thugs, four, five... after a time, she stopped counting, every ounce of her attention focused on the fight at hand.

She was fast, faster than her opponents expected. She’d spent months doing endurance drills with Vhetin, honing her body and mind for just this situation. Her legs pumped hard, carrying her across the sand and into the fray before Kassh’s goons could react. Her pistol snapped up and fired again and again, sending the smart scrambling for cover and the slow sprawling into the dirt with smoking blaster burns.

This was different than the fight on Rhen Var. She didn’t have her partner to distract the enemies, didn’t have the luxury of wounding her opponents instead of killing them. When she shot at her enemies now, she needed to ensure they stayed down. Yet for some reason, the reality of her actions was strangely detached from her actions themselves. She knew she was killing these people, but it didn’t bother her as much as she had thought it would.

Here, she didn’t have time to dwell on keeping her conscience clean. If she was going to survive this, she needed to make sure someone else didn’t.

 _This is what Sekha meant_ , she found herself thinking. _When she asked if I_ _’d ever killed before. And she was right; it’s very different than a dogfight in a TIE fighter._

She moved around a derelict speeder, careful to keep out of the line of sight of the colossal Darktrooper still stomping through the area. It was further away now, still investigating her first spot of cover behind the now-flaming speeder car. As she rounded the corner of her new hiding spot, an armored Nikto stuck its head out looking for her. She squeezed off a shot that hit him square in the forehead and the alien slumped, dead before it hit the ground. She kept moving after snagging an unprimed grenade he’d dropped when he fell.

 _Always remember to reload your weapon early,_ Vhetin had told her, his voice ringing through her mind even as she did as he’d advised. _It may seem like a waste of ammunition, but you don_ _’t want to run dry in the middle of a firefight. If you’ve got the time, do it. You may not have the time later._

She snapped back the charging rod of her pistol, tossing the magazine with three remaining shots into the sand behind her.

 _Last gas cartridge,_ she thought to herself. _Better make it count._

By her estimation, there were at least six more of Kassh’s thugs out here with her, as well as the giant battle droid. She wouldn’t have enough ammo to deal with them all. She could maybe find some other weapon, like she had done during the Stunball match. Maybe if she found a metal pipe or a hefty rock, something to incapacitate one of the thugs so she could take his weapon…

 _Improvisation_ , she remembered Vhetin saying on that day when Tarron had told them about the bounty on Kassh’s head. She remembered how skillfully he’d used his sword and shield in conjunction during their sparring match. She remembered that when she’d asked about it, he’d replied that he’d made it all up on the fly.

 _Improvisation_ , she thought. _Let_ _’s hope he’s not as full of poodoo as I think._

She rolled out from cover, keeping her head down as she fired at everything and anything that moved. The _snap_ of her Verpine pistol was loud in the transport lot and the yellow flash of her outgoing bolts lit up the darkness around her. Bodies fell left and right, the hostiles incapacitated or dead depending on fate and the luck of where her bolts fell. Far too soon, a small whine from her pistol told her that she was once again running low on ammo. She knelt to check the counter on the back of the weapon. It read that she had a minute amount of tibanna gas left in the ammo clip - enough for maybe five or six shots.

As she came to her feet, she swiveled to aim at a nearby Gammorean hefting a vibro-axe. She squeezed off four shots that hit the creature in the chest and face. The ugly, slobbering alien slumped over the railing into the vehicle lot. Its axe thumped into the dirt below.

 _There!_ She dashed toward the fallen weapon and holstered her spent pistol as she flew. As soon as she was close enough, she leaped forward with desperately outstretched hands, grasping for her salvation in the formless sea of sand beneath her.

She didn’t make it far enough. A large boot landed in the dirt behind her and a mechanical voice rumbled, “ _Cease resistance and place your weapons on the ground._ ”

She flipped onto her back to see the huge Darktrooper towering over her, wrist-mounted blaster cannon pointed directly at her face.

“ _Cease resistance and place your weapons on the ground_ ,” the droid repeated.

But she wasn’t paying attention. She was instead remembering her time down in the tunnel during the Stunball match, when she’d been staring down the barrel of an enemy Stunball pistol. Just like back then, she ever-so-slowly grasped the grip of her newfound weapon, careful not the arouse the suspicion of her attacker.

 _Improvisation_ , she heard Vhetin’s voice murmur again. The barrel of the droid’s cannon began to glow red with charge.

“ _Cease resistance_ ,” the Darktrooper boomed, _“and place your weapons-_ ”

The rumbling grate of a voice was cut off as Jay swung the heavy vibro-axe with all her adrenaline-fueled might. She put every ounce of strength her body could muster into the blow, swinging her shoulders and hips together. The charged blade sprang to life with a sizzling purple glow and a hissing crackle of popping plasma. A scream of effort tore from her lips as she smashed it across the droid’s hand, severing the appendage at the elbow. The droid screamed — a loud, mechanized screech not unlike the grate of metal on metal — and staggered back, flailing its one good arm in the air.

Jay came to her feet, hefting the heavy axe over her shoulder as she swung again and caught the droid in the stomach. Sparks flew as grease and wires spouted from the wound. The droid screamed again, falling to its knees and clawing at the air.

Using the momentum from her last strike, Jay swung the axe up and above her with a shout of effort, then brought it down with all her might on the Darktrooper’s head. It carved the scuffed chromium chassis neatly in two and sank down deep into the war droid’s mechanical guts. The body twitched as the vibrating purple blade of the axe sliced down through its central processor core. It froze for a moment, as if in disbelief. The fingers of its good hand twitched sporadically and there was a low buzz from somewhere deep in its housing. Then its glowing red eyes flickered and dimmed. The heavy body tilted, then fell to the ground with a crash that seemed to shake the world.

Jay stood alone in the now-quiet courtyard, listening to the distant snap of blasterfire and the shouts of fighting militia troopers. With a grunt, she wrenched the vibro-axe from the Darktrooper’s head and let it fall to the sand with a heavy _thud_ next to her.

She was breathing hard and her knees shook from exertion. She pulled a strand of sweaty hair from her eyes as she surveyed her battlefield, chest heaving. Every last one of Kassh’s thugs that had been stupid enough to stay and fight her lay dead, their bodies scattered around the transport lot. The rest were in open retreat, fleeing from the lot while throwing terrified glances over her shoulder.

She drew her pistol and half-heartedly sighted in on them, meaning to fire a few warning shots to keep them fleeing. But even as her finger hit the firing stud, the pistol clicked harmlessly in her palm. The cartridge was empty and her ammo stores were completely spent.

She felt a sudden wave of exhaustion wash over her and she staggered back, sprawling to her knees and propped herself up against the nearest transport. She reached up to tap at the comlink in her ear, thinking to report in to her partner, and realized that it must have fallen out while she’d been fighting. A wry chuckle fell bubbled up from her parched throat and she leaned back and let her head thump against the solid metal at her back.

 _Shab,_ she thought, barely even noticing her use of the Mandalorian word as she closed her eyes, feeling another wave of weariness sweep over her. _I did it. I almost died trying, but I did it._

_~~~~~~~~~~_

Vhetin sprinted for the transport lot, cutting down any of Kassh’s thugs that stood in his way. He vaulted over a barricade, bringing his saber down and slicing it along a human thug’s back. The man sputtered and slumped over as Vhetin landed on his feet and kept running.

“Jay,” he said over comms, “if you can hear me, I’m on my way. Hold on!”

He somersaulted as blaster bolts flew over his head and came up fighting, slicing a Quarren’s hands off at the wrists and flooring him with a one-two blow across the face from the blunt end of his saber-staff and a swift kick to the gut. It barely even slowed the Mandalorian down.

“Jay?” he said into the comm. “Jay, answer me!”

There was no answer. That wasn’t good.

 _Calm down,_ he told himself. _She_ _’s probably just in the middle of fighting and can’t answer you. Just because she isn’t answering doesn’t mean she’s dead. Usually._

The stretch of ground ahead of him was clear of enemies and he redoubled his efforts, sprinting through the dark, black on black. His heart was pounding as he thought, _I brought her into all of this. If something happened to her... I_ _’d never forgive myself._

It was a feeling he’d experienced far too often. He would _not_ let it happen again.

He saw the transport lot come into view around the corner, all twisted metal and the dark reflection of tinted speeder windows. He redoubled his efforts. He barely noticed the safety rail that surrounded the lot, front-flipping right over it and skidding down the steep embankment on the other side. He slid to a halt between two parked speeders and immediately scanned the area for signs of life with both his helmet scanners and his own, weaker mortal eyes.

It wasn’t pretty; there was carbon scoring everywhere, evidence of recent blaster fire, and many inert bodies. He tightened his grip on his saber-staff and slowly made his way out into the main area of the lot. The sand beneath his feet was churned by recent action, and blood - human and otherwise - stained the ground in many places.

“Jay?” he said quietly. “Are you there? Answer me?”

He moved out from around a speeder and saw the still-sparking corpse of a Darktrooper droid. It was slumped over, one arm missing, still twitching sporadically as some hidden backup power unit tried in vain to restore basic function to the giant war machine.

 _Oh no. That thing will have ripped her to pieces_ , he thought with a cold sinking in his gut. _He_ _’d_ almost been crushed by one of the damn things, and he was a seven-year veteran of this kind of chaos.

He lowered his lightsaber, shedding light on the prone form of the war droid. It seemed to have endured several blunt-force wounds to the chest and head, probably from the grease-stained vibro-axe that was tossed in the dirt nearby. And laying beyond it, dirty and bloody, her back propped up against a speeder, was Jay.

His heart ran cold as he saw her and he sprinted over, setting his pike aside and kneeling in the sand next to her. “Jay?” he said quietly. He reached out and slapped her face softly, to draw her attention, hoping she was just unconscious.

At his touch she jumped and pulled her pistol, pressing it up under his chin. He cursed and yanked her arm off to one side before she could fire. She struggled against him for a moment, cursing and the pistol clicked as her finger mashed the firing stud. It wasn’t long before he was able to wrench the gun from her hand and say, “Calm down. Calm down. It’s Vhetin.”

She stared around at her surroundings, uncomprehending. Then she saw him kneeling there and relaxed.

“Oh,” she sighed quietly, in equal parts relief and exhaustion. “It’s just you.”

“Are you all right?” he asked, looking her over for any serious wounds. She had a small burn near her collarbone and one on her shoulder, several bruises, and was covered in mud and sand. He didn’t see anything overly serious.

She nodded and let her head hit against the back of the transport behind her with a _thud_. She sighed brushed a clump of sand from where it had clung to a cut just above one eyebrow. “I’m good. And the transport lot is secure. Is this where I say _oya?_ ”

He couldn’t help it; he burst out laughing. He didn’t care that he’d almost died, or that she had almost died, or that Kassh was nowhere to be found. He just sat there with her and laughed. After a few moments, she began to laugh too.

They stayed there for a few minutes, laughing and catching their breath. It didn’t last long, but it was enough.


	8. Back to Square One

Later, as the militia troopers were mopping up the last pockets of resistance from Kassh’s thugs, Vhetin, Jay, Massano, and Karlyn found themselves in the central room of the base, staring around at the droid decoys. Kalyn nudged one with her boot while Jay used a damp rag to clean the sand from her face and hair.

“The troopers are rounding up the last of Kassh’s thugs,” Massano said. “All of his goons face criminal charges and will be locked away for life. If they’re lucky. We lost a few men, but most of our guys made it through in one piece.”

Farnmir chuckled. “They’re already fighting over spare parts from those Darktroopers. For such a ragtag militia, I have to admit that they make decent shock troops.”

“And what about the corrupt militiamen?” Jay inquired, holding the cool rag to the cut over her eye. “What happens to them?”

Massano shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to screen each one of them individually. Normally I would have just fired them all and locked them up for their dishonesty, but now...” He glanced at Vhetin and reluctantly finished, “...now I believe in giving people a second chance.”

Jay looked over at Vhetin and fought back a smile. Her partner was not so moved. Arms folded across his chest, he simply nodded and said, “I’m glad you see it that way. _Vor_ _’e._ ”

“No. Thank you,” Massano replied with a grudging sniff. “Without you guys, I would have sat back while this Kassh guy stole my militia right under my nose. I owe you three a lot.”

“Don’t get too grateful,” Kalyn pointed out. “Some of us are still just in this for the paycheck.”

“Fair enough.” Massano chuckled dryly and nodded before turning fully to face the black-armored Mandalorian. There was an uneasy silence between the two before Vhetin said, “So where do we stand?”

“Right now? I won’t shoot you. But I’ll only consider us _even_ if I die without ever seeing you back in my city. No offense, but old hostilities die hard.”

Still, he held out an open hand to the Mandalorian. Vhetin stared at it for a moment, long enough for Jay to think he was going to refuse the peace offering. But then he stepped forward and clasped the offered and tight with his own, giving it a terse up-and-down shake once. Massano nodded, as if that was more than he’d expected.

The militia leader shook hands with all of them before turning and striding into the darkness, heading off to help his troopers mop up the rest of Kassh’s fleeing thugs. He vanished down a side hallway without further farewell and the door slid shut behind him. In only moments, Vhetin, Jay, and Farnmir stood alone in the central room.

A part of Jay was sorry to see the man go. He had been an invaluable - if stubborn - ally. They could have used his help for the next leg of the hunt. But she knew there was nothing she could say that would convince the man to accompany them; he had too many problems of his own to clean up, and the last thing he probably wanted was to accompany the very bounty hunters he had threatened to imprison and execute only yesterday.

She turned her attention back to the job at hand. Her partner had been fussing over the results of the battle since the few relieved moments in the transport lot, where the fight had been brought to a close. It didn’t look like that fussing was going to stop any time soon.

“And you’re sure there’s no sign of Kassh?” Vhetin asked Farnmir, kicking at a deactivated droid with the tip of one boot.

Kalyn nodded. “He’s like a ghost. I ran an I.D of all the dead thugs the militia rounded up and I didn’t see anything from the sky either. He’s not here.”

“Maybe he got away?” Jay offered. “Maybe he had... I don’t know a secret transport of his own?”

Farnmir shook her head. “No. The sensors on Vhetin’s ship would have picked something up. I’m telling you, he’s not here. We lost him.”

“But if he was never here,” Vhetin said, “why did Durge give you the coordinates to this base?”

Farnmir shrugged. “Maybe to throw off the trail? He knew we were working with Prince Xizor and Jabba the Hutt, so maybe he thought the best way to draw us away from his boss was to say that he was hiding right under our employer’s noses. It sounds like something Kassh would do.”

She laughed. “Stang, is Prince Xizor going to be mad at us. I wouldn’t be surprised if...”

She broke off and frowned curiously at Vhetin, who had suddenly gone tense and was staring at the floor. Jay glanced over at her partner and frowned as well.

“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

He slowly looked up and Jay could almost see the look of dawning comprehension on his face, even though his face was masked behind the T-bar visor of his helmet. He clenched his fists as he murmured, “We’ve been played. Kriffing _played._ ”

Kalyn put her hands on her hips and fixed Vhetin with a glare. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re right,” Vhetin said to her. “He wasn’t here; he never even came to Tatooine.”

“Then where-”

She was interrupted again as Vhetin suddenly dashed off into the darkness, headed outside.

“We‘re not done yet!” he yelled over his shoulder. “We need to get to Coruscant. _Now_!”

Jay sprinted after him, following him outside, where Tatooine’s twin suns were just painting the sky with the first traces of dawn. She caught up just as he ran up the ramp into his ship, disappearing inside without even pausing to wait for her.  He ran straight for the cockpit, almost punching at the button to get it open. As soon as it was parted, he squeezed through and threw himself into the pilot’s seat. He frantically entered commands into the main console and warmed up the sublight drives for immediate departure. He didn’t even bother with the pre-flight system check.

“What in the _hell_ has gotten into you?” Jay cried as the deck jumped beneath her feet, threatening to toss her to the ground. “What’s wrong?”

“I know where Kassh is,” Vhetin hissed. “Or at least where he’s going to be.”

“Where?”

“We were never his main concern. He was just trying to get us out of the way so he could continue his plans.”

“If you don’t start making sense soon, Vhetin,” she said as she was thrown into the gunner’s seat by the shaking, “I’m going to have to shoot you myself.”

“Think!” he said. “Remember what Kexio said back at the cantina on Coruscant? Kassh busted in on an important meeting between all the biggest crime lords in the galaxy. And seeing as how he left before the meeting was over, that means whatever he went in there to say, they didn’t listen to him.”

“Yeah… Is there a point to all of this?”

“Kassh is volatile and dangerous,” Vhetin said. “And if they disagreed with him, especially if it was over something important, he’s going to be out for blood.”

She frowned as she buckled herself in. “And all he’s already done doesn’t count already?”

He shook his head. “Like I said: a distraction, to lure his hunters away and allow him to operate unimpeded. Stupid, stupid, _stupid!_ _”_ He entered a hailing comm into the ship’s keyboard and said, “Tarron. Damn it, Tarron come in _now_!”

“ _I_ _’m here_ ,” the Journeyman Protector’s voice said. “ _What_ _’s got your_ shebs _in a tangle?_ ”

“Get hold of Black Sun’s business agenda right now. We’re working for them, so we should have access. What’s Prince Xizor’s next scheduled meeting?”

“ _Give me a sec_ ,” Tarron said. “ _That_ _’s a pretty tall order. I don’t-_ ”

“Just do it,” Vhetin snapped as he headed for high orbit.

“ _Fine, fine_ _…_ ” It was some time before the man’s voice returned. “ _Er... okay, it looks like he_ _’s got dinner scheduled tomorrow night with the Duke of Serreno and his wife... um, after that he’s leaving for Malastare..._ ”

“Check earlier,” Vhetin said as the stars came into view through the front viewport. “Today.”

“ _Right now he_ _’s in the middle of a meeting with some business associates, most of which I don’t recognize but... oh, this is interesting. Sekha and Jabba the Hutt are going to be there._ ”

“Where?”

“ _It doesn_ _’t say. Sorry Vhetin._ ”

Jay’s eyes widened as it suddenly clicked. Everything they’d done since Rhen Var: the fight with Durge, meeting up with Massano, the attack on his base... it had all been a scam to lure them away while he focused on his own plans. To give him time to plan an all-out assault on that meeting, and give him a chance to kill everyone there. With all the galaxy’s crime lords eliminated, he could easily snap up all the power and influence he wanted.

And they had taken the bait like a nexu in a blood frenzy.

“Like I said,” Vhetin growled. “We need to get to Coruscant _right now_. If not, Kassh is going to kill everyone in that meeting... including our employers.”

~~~~~~~~~

**Underworld, Imperial Center (formerly Coruscant)**

Durge stared at his hand as he clenched a massive fist. The metal plating of his glove groaned as the fist squeezed. Since his defeat at the Mandalorian’s hands, his muscles had been acting a little twitchy. Lightsaber burns were always a bitch to heal, and the tendons never seemed to stitch together properly after being cauterized. He slowly opened the fist, watching as his hand trembled from the effort.

He had just finished reuniting the severed halves of his body again. Even now, waving tendrils of muscle and nerve slithered over his torso as if they had minds of their own, rebuilding muscle structure and reconstructing his former build. He let out a deep rumbling growl as two sinews twisted around each other, sending a lance of pain up the Gen’dai’s spine.

There was still a gaping rent in his armor from the path of the Mandalorian’s lightsaber as it had slashed through him. He could repair that easily enough, and with a great deal less pain than the repairs his body was currently undergoing. He shook his helmeted head and clenched a fist, feeling his massive biceps slither around for a moment before solidifying once more into rock-hard muscle.

The real pain came from the simply humiliation. He was the greatest warrior the galaxy had ever seen, a soldier with over a thousand years of combat experience. And yet he’d still been thrashed to within an inch of his life and burnt to a crisp by a haughty Mandalorian and his pipsqueak of a partner. He clapped his clenched fist into an open palm, the motion greeted by a satisfying _THWAM_ of colliding metal on metal.

 _Next time_ , he thought with a menacing, animalistic growl. _Next time I_ _’ll rip his bucket head from his shoulders and mount it on a spike. No less than his kind deserves, to die alone and unforgotten in the dirt._

Caught up in his examination of his wounds, he didn’t hear the quiet footsteps behind him, didn‘t see the dark figure creeping up on his blind side. There was a loud _snap-hiss_ behind him, and before he could turn to face his attacker, fire ripped through his torso. He roared in pain as dark blood spattered the floor beneath his feet and he hit the ground with all the noise and force of a speeder crash.

For a shocked moment he simply lay there, face-down on the duracrete, bewildered by what had just happened. He tried to rise to his hands and knees but found that he could not; his knees could not support his weight. He collapsed again, letting out a howl of pain as another rippling spear of agony plunged through his torso.

Gritting his sharp teeth against the pain, he pushed himself up onto his hands and rolled himself over. Then he saw that his knees couldn’t support his weight because they were once again separated from his body. His lower half lay a few feet away, legs twitching erratically as purple-pink blood oozed out onto the duracrete beneath.

He was about to crawl toward the lower half of his body when something grabbed him under the shoulder and flipped him onto his back with a _thud_. An armored boot landed on his chest plate, pinning him to the ground. The hated visage of a jet black Mandalorian helmet descended out of the shadows.

“You’re going to tell me everything I want to know,” Cin Vhetin said, holding his lit saber pike only inches from Durge’s helmeted face. “And you’re going to tell me right now.”

~~~~~~~~

Far too soon for her taste, Jay stepped back through the door of the Brimstone Tapcaf. The business was much as she remembered it from her last visit: there were still tables and chairs overturned, the Dug performer was still screaming into his amplicoder, and Kexio was still at the bar. She waved to get the Basilisk bartender’s attention and made her way to the back of the cantina where he waited.

She saw the same mercenaries that had challenged her and Vhetin the other day, sitting together in a booth along one wall. One of them saw her and tapped the other mercs on the shoulder, gesturing to her and whispering to the others. He started to get up, but she made sure her pistol was well within view on her hip. The others clearly seemed to think better of challenging her, grabbing their unruly companion and forcing him back into his seat.

“I wish I could say it was good t’ see you again,” Kexio rumbled as she stepped up to the bar, “but you trashed my place pretty good las’ time you passed through, so-”

“Spare me the complaints, Kex,” she said. “I need to know what that big meeting between the crime lords was all about.”

He grunted. “How should I know?”

“You have security cams installed, don’t you?” Jay asked, playing her trump card. “Imperial law dictates that all cantinas have to have them as a precaution against criminal activity. And _another_ Imperial law dictates that a licensed bounty hunter has the right to request any cam footage so long as it pertains to their current contract.”

She reached into her jacket and produced her standard Imperial hunter’s license, clapping it down onto the bartop. She tapped it with one finger expectantly.

“There’s a hundred-credit reward for turning in any violators of that law,” she said.

Kexio’s leathery reptilian face scrunched up in a grimace. “Fine, fine. Follow me and I’ll show you th’ footage from th’ meeting. Just... keep it quiet, all right? Don’ need this getting out. I make a lot o’ money off Xizor and his like.”

“I promise I will,” Jay said as she followed him.

~~~~~~~~

Kalyn Farnmir slid down the ladder into her ship’s cargo hold and sauntered toward the single occupied cage. She pulled a stun prod from her belt and activated it with a menacing flourish. The weapon sprang to life in a crackle of purple-white lightning.

“Computer,” she commanded as she approached Kassh’s brother, still cowering in the cage and awaiting delivery to whichever crime lord would pay best. “Deactivate cage two’s shields.”

“Affirmative,” replied the smooth voice of the computer. The shimmering shields that stretched between the cage bars disappeared with a sputter of light. As she approached, Killik shrank against the back wall.

Kalyn didn’t let him cower long; she yanked open the door and dragged the Twi’lek out of the cage by his lekku. With a mighty wrench, she threw him to the deck and planted an armored knee in his back, pinning him to the ground as she pressed the stun prod against the back of the his head. The Twi’lek writhed and screamed as electricity coursed through his nervous system.

“Please!” he cried. “Please! Please don’t kill me! Please!”

Kalyn didn’t listen; she just dug the stun prod deeper into Killik’s neck. His scream increased by several octaves. After a time, she deactivated the prod and climbed off the Twi’lek’s back. She took two carefully measured steps away and cocked her head to one side.

“Now, Killik,” she said quietly, “tell me about your brother.”

~~~~~~~~

All three met up within the hour outside the starport, joined by the life-sized holographic image of Tarron Matele.

“Jay,” Vhetin said, gesturing to her. “You go first. What did you find out about the meeting between all those crime lords?”

“Well,” Jay said, running a hand through her hair, “we were right; Kassh was trying to convince the other crime lords not to ally their businesses with the Empire. He looked like he was almost convincing them when this tall green guy - Xizor I’m guessing - strutted through the door and made him look like a complete fool. Next thing he knows, he’s on the floor being beaten up by some skinny blonde woman.”

Farnmir chuckled. “Humiliating. It’s no wonder he wants Xizor dead.”

Jay looked to her partner. “What did Durge tell you?”

“I found out that the next meeting between all these organizations is in an abandoned warehouse near the border of the Industrial Sector. It was going to be held in one of Black Sun’s plush business towers near the Senate, but apparently some of the crime lords wanted a more neutral meeting place.”

“And what does Kassh plan to do with them all once they’re all there?”

Vhetin frowned beneath his helmet. “Durge wasn’t very specific. He wasn’t given much information to start with, and he was kind of lightheaded from blood loss - but he hinted that Kassh himself is going to oversee the operation. Probably wants to see the look on the crime lords’ faces in person.”

“What do you think he’s going to do to them?” Jay asked.

“Maybe he’ll trap them in the warehouse and... I don’t know, release some poison gas or something. Maybe plant a bomb and be done with it. That’s what I would do in his situation; quick, dramatic, and anonymous.”

“ _Kassh has already proved himself to be unpredictable,_ ” Tarron murmured, speaking for the first time as he rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully. “ _I think if you can find and capture him, the rest of his plan will fall apart. His lackeys lack motivation; without their boss breathing down their necks, they_ _’ll just break and run._ ”

"No offense," Jay said, "but that's easier said than done. We've been a step behind him this entire hunt, and he always seems to have some trick up his sleeve."

"Then there's only one way to go about this," Vhetin said.

"What?"

"We have to get a step ahead of _him_. Lay a trap for him that he won't be able slither out of."

"Again," Jay pointed out, "easier said than done."

“We'll see. Farnmir, what did you find out?” Vhetin asked the bounty huntress. She had interrogated Kassh’s brother, trying to find out what the gangster would be planning.

“Next to nothing,” Kalyn replied with a scowl. “Apparently Kassh and his brother aren’t exactly the closest of siblings. After spending a half-hour with that armless _schutta_ , I can’t blame him; that guy’s annoying enough to make a Mon Calamari pacifist want to cut his head off.”

“Did you manage to get _anything_ from him?”

“Something, yes. He kept thinking all this was about his brother stealing some kind of Black Market shipment. He kept saying that his brother had taken a ‘glowrod’ without paying for it.”

“A glowrod?” Jay said, confused. “What the hell is he talking about?”

“At first I didn’t know. But then he mentioned the fact that his brother had hurled this green ‘glowrod’ at his head and that hit had melted through a meter of durasteel in the blink of an eye. What other glowing weapon causes damage like that?”

“A lightsaber,” Vhetin sighed. “Just great.”

Jay shook her head. “Where do you people even _get_ these things? Lightsabers are supposed to be an Empire-monitored technology!”

"Anything can be stolen or smuggled," Kalyn said. "Just because the Emperor waves his wrinkled hands and says something doesn't make it universal law."

“It kind of does. That’s the whole point of being Emperor!”

“That’s not important,” Vhetin said. “All that’s important is that now Kassh is deadlier than ever. We need to get to that warehouse, tell the crime lords what’s going on, and make sure Kassh’s plan fails.”

Kalyn nodded and turned back to her ship. "I'll talk to you guys again when we get to the warehouse."

"I'll send you the coordinates," Vhetin called after her.

After she had disappeared from view, Vhetin and Jay turned to the shimmering blue hologram of Tarron, who raised an eyebrow.

" _Wow,_ ” he said. _“She's even worse than her file said._ "

"Reality sucks; we all sympathize, Tarron."

" _In the meantime_ ," the holographic Journeyman Protector said, his voice intermittently cut through with static, " _I have some new info for you. When Kassh does attack in force, I know who's going to be with him._ "

"Who? Hopefully not Durge again."

“Not likely,” Vhetin said. “The way I left him, he’ll be stitching himself together for the next month at least.”

Jay let out a relieved breath. “Thank the Force for that, at least.”

" _Kassh doesn't want to openly attack the rest of the crime lords with his own troops. He wants to kill them anonymously, so that their territories are wide open for him to take without fear of reprisal_."

"Ambitious. But who is he using? Any big names?"

" _No. But a contact of mine in Midnight Ultraviolet told me that he's assembled a task force of four snipers, twenty-five mercenaries hired out of Nar Shadda, and no less than five hacked Mark-Three Darktroopers_."

"Oh, well then," Jay said with a roll of her eyes. "What's to worry about? We barely survived the last time he threw those damn droids at us. But hey, what's life without a few challenges?"

"Stow the sarcasm, Jay," Vhetin said. "This is serious now. Either we find and capture Kassh, or he wins and he kills our employers. That means no paycheck and most likely no chance of survival for any of us."

She nodded, sighing in exasperation. "Yes, Vhetin. I'm very aware of the situation. I'm just... never mind."

Vhetin turned back to Tarron. "We may need to alert the local authorities if the situation gets out of hand. Is there anything you can do about that?"

Tarron chuckled. " _Yeah, stormtroopers foiling an assassination attempt on the galaxy's biggest criminal masterminds. I'd love to see how Imperial propaganda would spin that._ "

"Can you do it?"

Tarron thought for a moment, then nodded. " _Yeah. If you can send me an emergency message, I have friends in the CSF who'll be more than happy to help out in bringing Kassh down. Who knows? They may even cut you guys some slack when they capture you all and only commit you to a life sentence in the Coruscant High-Security Prison._ "

Jay winced, reminded once more of her last bout in prison. "Please don't joke like that."

" _Oh... I_ _’m sorry_ ," Tarron quickly said. " _I forgot_."

“It’s fine. Just… let’s move on.’

The holographic man turned back to Vhetin and said, " _I'll keep an eye on you two, just in case. Tarron, out._ "

"Thanks," the Mandalorian said as Tarron's hologram sputtered out. Wasting time, he scooped up the holotransmitter and headed for his ship.

"Come on," he said. "We have to get moving."

~~~~~~~~

“Halt!” the Nikto guard at the door to the ‘deserted’ warehouse said, holding up a hand. “You are trespassing on private-”

Kalyn pulled her pistol and aimed it squarely at the guard’s face. “Step aside,” she said, “unless you want to die right here and now.”

Within moments, no less than ten guards had surrounded them, blasters pointed at their heads. Farnmir glanced around, but her arm didn’t move. Vhetin, never thinking he would be the voice of reason in such a situation, stepped up and pushed her arm away. “Remember, we’re on their side,” he murmured.

Kalyn scowled. “Then they should stay out of our way.”

He turned to the guard with an apologetic nod in greeting. “My name is Cin Vhetin. This is Kalyn Farnmir and Jay Moquena. We’re bounty hunters, hired by your boss. We need to talk to him now.”

“I don’t know what you’re-”

“Don’t play dumb with us,” he interrupted. “We know about the meeting here.”

“How-”

“All you need to know,” Farnmir growled, “is that unless you let us through right now, this entire place is going to go up in flames."

"I don't know what you're-"

"Trust us," Jay said, hoping to be the single non-threatening voice in the bunch. "We need to talk to your bosses. It's _very_ important."

The Nikto finally narrowed his eyes and said, "Okay, but I'll need to check with command.”

“You do that,” Vhetin said as he turned away. “Just make it fast. We don’t know how much time is left.”

Jay stood, her hand resting on the butt of her pistol as she glanced nervously at the guards that kept their guns pointed at their heads. Of all the situations she’d been in since this job started, this was one of the most uncomfortable. Every one of the guards was ready to shoot and kill at a moment’s notice. She hoped Vhetin knew what he was doing.

Farnmir, meanwhile, didn’t seem to be anywhere near as nervous as Jay. In fact, she was glaring at each of the guards in turn. “Just how much are they paying you for this?” she asked one of them. Her remark was met with a grunt, nothing more.

The Nikto guard took a single step away, murmuring into his comlink. “Yes. Yessir. Yessir. I’ll let them know. Yessir.”

He gestured at the guards. “Stand down. The Prince has cleared them for access.”

Much to Jay’s relief, the guards lowered their rifles and grudgingly headed back to their security posts. The Nikto now gestured to the hunters and growled, “Prince Xizor will see you now.”

Jay was about to step forward with Vhetin, but the Mandalorian held out a hand to stop her. “No,” he said. “I need you to go with Kalyn and brief the guards. They need to know what’s going on as soon as possible.”

Farnmir folded her arms and said, “We’ll set up snipers on the roof as a precaution. I’ll comm you when we’re finished solidifying the defenses out here.”

Vhetin nodded. “I’ll keep the crime lords safe.”

Jay smiled. “Do you know how much that made you sound like a criminal yourself?”

“I am a criminal,” he pointed out as he turned and jogged after the Nikto guard. “You are, too.”

“See, I’ve always considered myself more of a puckish rogue.”

“No time for jokes now, Rookie,” Farnmir said as Vhetin and his guide disappeared into the warehouse. “We need to get set up fast.”

One of the guards raised a hand and called, “Everyone, get over here. These _schuttas_ have something to tell us.”

The guards gathered around the two bounty huntresses in a rough circle, much like before. Jay was at least glad that their guns weren’t pointed at her head now. Kalyn looked around at all of the assembled guards with a scowl.

“Do any of you know about a Twi’lek gangster named Kassh Goran?” she inquired.

Most of the guards nodded; Midnight Ultraviolet was obviously bigger news on Coruscant than on Tatooine. Jay was glad, because that made her job that much easier.

“Good,” Farnmir said, nodding to herself, “because he’s on his way here right now with his own personal army. And he’s dead-set on killing the guys who sign your paychecks.”

There were scattered murmurs of concern throughout the assembled guards, and Jay had to admire Farnmir’s tactics. The older woman had obviously been in this business a _long_ time, and knew just which buttons to push to get her allies to perform to the best of their abilities. With these guards, a moving speech about freedom and courage in the face of death would be pointless; a threat to their pocketbooks was a much more serious motivator.

The veteran huntress let that sink in for a moment before continuing, “We’re going to stop this kriffer, but we need your help.”

“How do we know you aren’t just trying to trick us and kill our bosses by getting us on your side?” asked a pensive dark-skinned Zabrak.

“If we wanted your bosses dead,” Farnmir replied, “we would have just strafed the place from our ships and not bothered with all this. The fact that we’re offering to help should be proof enough that we’re not trying to trick you.”

“Fair enough.”

Kalyn stared at the guard long enough to ensure he wasn’t about to challenge her authority again. Then she gestured to the duracrete warehouse behind her. “Your organizations picked this warehouse for a reason,” she said. “Why?”

After a short silence, a young human man spoke up. “It has a depression in the ceiling that’s a good position for snipers. We’ve set up security posts around three-quarters of the warehouse, and the last side faces the G-sector River.”

 _River_? Jay thought. Coruscant was a planet-wide city; there hadn’t been any rivers on the planet since thousands of years before... well, thousands of years before the _Mandalorian_ _Wars_ at least.

“Good. I’ll oversee your men up in the sniper post. Jay here will go with whoever is left to secure a perimeter defense.” Kalyn fixed Jay with an unreadable stare and asked, “Think you can handle that?”

“I think so,” Jay said with confidence, drawing her pistol and double-checking the ammo counter. “One of the first things Vhetin taught me was how to secure a perimeter.”

“Glad to hear,” Farnmir said as she turned away. “Then get to it.”

Farnmir took half of the guards and disappeared around the corner. Jay turned to her half and said, “Show me everything about this area. I want to know it like I know the back of my hand.”

The Zabrak guard, who had stayed with her group, nodded and motioned for her to follow. “What do you need to see first?” the alien asked, rubbing a dull cranial horn like a human would at his chin.

“Let’s take a look at this river first,” she replied. “I need to know if it’s a viable approach to the warehouse. You said you weren’t guarding that side.”

“Oh, we’re not. But you’ll see why in a moment.”

As they headed around the building, the rest of the guards following them, the Zabrak offered his hand. “My name’s Jao-Dun.”

“Jay Kolta,” she replied, shaking the offered hand. She didn’t sense any outward animosity from the being, but she remained wary all the same. These men worked for beings like Sekha, and the infamous Jabba the Hutt. Her instinct told her to treat them with caution.

“You strike me,” he said slowly, “as a proficient warrior. Yet the other human called you _Rookie_.”

“Long story,” she said. “I’m more than able to hold my own.”

“You travel in the company of a Mandalorian,” he said. “I would expect nothing less.”

“He’s my partner. The man who trained me.”

He shot her a smile full of yellow-black teeth. “In that case, I will raise my expectations.”

“You do that,” she said. “In the meantime, we have a base to secure.”

She quickly found that the G-sector River was not a river after all, rather a huge broken durasteel pipe - at least twenty-five meters tall - with highly reflective blue coolant fluid slogging past them. Jay had to cover her mouth to block out the stink and was only partially successful.

“Lovely,” she said, her voice muffled through her hands. “I’ve flown barge runs over Raxus that smelled better.”

Jao-Dun inhaled deeply, as if he enjoyed the stink. He broke into coughs soon after, however, and said, “Yeah. It’s not great, but it serves our purposes.”

“How so? Scaring away local mutant wildlife and the occasional drifter?”

The Zabrak gestured toward a stack of containment barrels near the “river’s” edge. “With the broken pipe so close by, we can spend our off time siphoning off the reactor coolant and selling it on the black market.”

Smart, Jay had to admit. But it was dangerous, keeping coolant so close to a meeting place for crime lords. Everyone knew that coolant fluid was highly flammable; one of the reasons starships exploded with such gusto. And with so many coolant vats piled in such close proximity to a karking river of the stuff, even a stray blaster bolt could blow the entire area to Force-knew-where.

Then an idea came to her. She frowned thoughtfully and turned to Jao-Dun. “Do you have any loadlifter droids to move these coolant vats?”

The Zabrak nodded. “But of course. It would take hours to get these things out of here without them. Why? What are you thinking?”

She gestured to the vats and said, “Get those loadlifters working on moving those vats. We may just have an advantage here.”

~~~~~~~~

The Nikto guard led Vhetin into the warehouse, past several heavily armed security checkpoints. Obviously, the meeting room was situated deep in the facility. And, Vhetin noticed as they trudged down a long stairway, it appeared to be buried deep underground. Smart; even if the warehouse did come under attack, the crime lords would be well removed from any action.

“Jay,” he said, activating his comlink as he walked down a second flight of stairs. “Sit-rep.”

“ _I_ _’ve got a plan to keep Kassh’s thugs away from the warehouse. I don’t know if it’ll work for Kassh himself, because he’s probably not going to tag along with the first assault, but it’ll definitely keep them back for a while._ ”

He noted that she was purposefully not telling him about her plan. He didn’t know if that was because she wanted maximum surprise when she jumped into action, or she thought their comm line wasn’t secure. Either way, he didn’t inquire any further.

“Okay,” he nodded. “Just remember that we want Kassh _alive._ And if you scare him off, we won‘t be able to spring our trap.”

“ _Come on, Vhetin_ ,” she said. All trace of self-doubt or hesitation in her voice was gone. “ _When have I ever let you down?_ ”

It was a rhetorical question; they both knew she would meet whatever challenge set in front of her with all her ability. It was one of her greatest qualities when it came to bounty hunting. “What about Farnmir?”

“ _Set up with the other snipers on the roof. They_ _’re dug in pretty well up there; it won’t take them long to take out Kassh’s snipers when they show themselves. They’re pretty much invisible up there._ ”

“Good,” he breathed. He glanced up as the guard ahead of him knocked on a heavyset vault door. Obviously, they had arrived. So he wrapped his conversation up, saying, “I’ll check back in a few minutes.”

“ _I_ _’ll be waiting_ ,” Jay replied. She paused, then added, “ _Be careful._ ”

He nodded, more to himself than to anyone in particular. “Yeah. You too.”

Then he signed off the comm and stepped past the guard, into the room. The barrier slammed shut behind him and he heard a hiss of pressurized air as the room was sealed against gas, explosions, or other threats to the crime lords within. Black Sun had obviously put a lot of effort into securing this place. He only hoped it would be enough.

The room beyond wasn’t exactly plush, but the gangsters’ servants and majordomos had done their best to spruce the place up enough to house their masters’ refined tastes. The dirty, cracked duracrete walls had been draped with expensive tapestries and the floor had been covered by a thick green carpet. Vhetin himself thought it just made the floor look like it was covered in mold, but he knew better than to say anything. Interior decorating, after all, was not his chosen profession.

There was a rough stone table rising from the floor in the center of the room and it was around this table that more than seven major criminal masterminds were sitting. Vhetin recognized several of them immediately: the regal-looking Prince Xizor, the quivering mass of blubber and slime that was Jabba the Hutt, and the beautiful and delicate-looking Sekha. The rest he didn’t immediately notice and so were not important for now.

All eyes were on him, and more than one stare was decidedly hostile. Several Twi’lek gangsters were muttering between themselves and glaring at him. Sekha’s eyes lighted on his black armor and her face lit up in a beautiful smile. Jabba looked him up and down and belched nonchalantly.

He bowed his head and placed a flat palm against his chest in a clear gesture of respect. Jabba and Xizor were his employers, after all, and there was every chance he’d wind up working for one of these other crime lords in the future. Still, his adherence to protocol didn’t seem to net him any points. As he straightened, Xizor stared him down with a gaze that could freeze fire.

“I hope you have good reasons,” the Falleen Prince said quietly, “for intruding on this _private_ meeting, bounty hunter.”

Vhetin nodded and replied, “I do. I’ve tracked Kassh to Coruscant, and discovered that he is planning to attack this base.”

A noticeable ripple of surprise spread around the table. Even Xizor looked taken aback, but only for the briefest of moments. The crime lords began whispering among themselves, and several cast more baleful glares in his direction; after all, he had been charged to bring Kassh in, not lead him right to their meeting place. Vhetin had long since grown used to such stares, however, and ignored them.

Sekha was grinning to herself, obviously pleased that her old friend Kassh was causing so much trouble. She’d always had a mischievous streak that was lacking in the other crime lords. It was what had led her to try and literally stab him in the back when he’d worked for her and subsequently what had made him leave her service as a privately employed hunter.

Jabba belched and rumbled in Huttese, “ _Let him come. We are safe here. We have taken appropriate precautions and my guards are the most highly-trained forces in all the underworld. Should Kassh appear, we will grind him into dust and feed it to the kath hounds._ ”

“Silence,” Xizor snapped, flicking a taloned hand at the Hutt. “Save your egotism for those with more patience.”

Jabba narrowed his reptilian eyes dangerously, but fell silent. The Falleen turned his razor focus back to Vhetin and inquired, “When is he planning to do this?”

“He may be here as we speak. And he plans to kill every single one of you”

There was silence throughout the room. Sekha’s grin slowly faded, replaced by a genuine look of concern. Jabba’s eyes stretched wide again, and the rest of the crime lords glanced nervously at each other. More worried whispers ensued.

Xizor rubbed his leathery chin with a thoughtful frown. “Kassh has obviously grown bolder in recent months than I anticipated,” he murmured, sounding as if he was mostly speaking to himself. After a moment, he turned to the attractive blond woman standing at his shoulder.

“Guri,” he said, “I want you to move to the upper levels. Ensure that no one passes checkpoint three. Lethal force is authorized and highly recommended.”

The woman nodded without a word and pulled two long-barreled blaster pistols from the back of her belt before disappearing through the door. Xizor watched her swagger away before saying, “I trust you have taken precautions of your own, bounty hunter?”

Vhetin nodded. “My... _team_ is up top, securing the defenses. When he shows up, we’ll be ready for him.”

Xizor folded his arms into his sleeves. “Very well. I wish for you to stay here in the lower levels and ensure our safety. Let no one past. Fail, and it will cost you dearly.”

“Success will cost you, too,” Vhetin said. He’d had so many troubles on this mission already, he was beginning to think that even the ample reward of a hundred thousand credits wasn’t going to be enough. It was a risky gamble, speaking to the Prince in such a manner. But fortune, as they said, favored the bold.

Jabba chuckled, a deep, wet sound that made Vhetin’s lip curl in disgust. “ _You were supposed to track this schutta down before he caused more trouble. And not only have you not accomplished that goal, but he is now planning to kill us all! You will be lucky if you will be paid a fraction of the original posted bounty!_ ”

Vhetin tightened his grip on the lightsaber hilts on his belt, his face furrowing in a scowl. “You’ll want to reconsider that,” he growled. “Because right now, my team is the only thing standing between you and a messy death.”

Jabba let out a quick _ho ho ho_ of laughter and gurgled, “ _You_ _’ve already given us all the information we need to repel this attack. You are nothing now but expendable meat_.”

“Would you boys like to take this dispute outside?” Sekha inquired innocently, steepling her fingers with a smirk. “My money’s on the Mandalorian.”

“ _Enough_ ,” Xizor hissed, his voice suddenly tinged with reptilian coldness. He glanced between them all with a malevolent glare. “Now is not the time for division. If Kassh is already en route as you have implied, bounty hunter, then we must all prepare.”

“If the guards arm you all,” Vhetin said, looking between the crime lords as well, “can I trust you not to shoot each other?”

One of the gangsters, a blue-skinned Twi’lek male, narrowed his eyes and began to rise from his seat, hissing, “Of all the impudent-”

He was silenced by a single glare from the Prince. He slowly returned to his seat under that whithering stare. The Falleen then returned his gaze to Vhetin and said, “I will deal with our protection. Leave us with a single squad of guards, then keep watch over the hall outside. Again, allow no one to pass, be it Kassh‘s thugs or our own guards.”

“As you wish.” Vhetin bowed his head again as he turned back to the door. “I will contact you again when we have him in custody.”

“I’m sure,” Xizor said, narrowing his eyes.

“Good luck,” Sekha called after him, her voice still tinged with that hint of wicked mischief.

As the door swung shut behind him again, he opened his line to Jay again.

“ _Hey_ ,” she replied at his hail, “ _I just finished up securing the perimeter and the guards are spread out around the compound. What_ _’s the news with the crime lords?_ ”

“They’re safe for now,” Vhetin said. “But I’ve been ordered to stand guard down here until they deem it safe. Any sign of Kassh?”

“ _Nope. When Farnmir or the sniper team finds something, you_ _’ll be the first to know. After me, of course._ ”

He cracked a hint of a smile. “Okay. Keep on your toes. We’ll only have one shot at this, and if Kassh thinks he’s not going to make it, he’ll bug out fast.”

“ _Copy that_ ,” his partner said before signing off.

Vhetin sighed and settled himself in to wait.


	9. The End

**Later**

The sky was pitch black when one of the snipers said, “Hey... I think I’ve got something here.”

Kalyn looked up from her own scan of the area surrounding the warehouse. “What is it?”

“Movement in Sector Gee-Nineteen,” the black-clothed human replied, fiddling with the infrared adjustments on his rifle. “It could be nothing... just a hawkbat or someone’s lost gizka, but-”

“Let me take a look,” Kalyn said, crawling on her belly towards the man and his rifle, careful to press herself as close to the roof of the warehouse as possible. The man shifted aside to allow her access to the rifle. She tucked herself into position and sighted in on Sector G-19: a square-meter division of the area on the west side of the warehouse, near a speeder access lane.

She squinted, making the computerized scope zoom in, and saw a dull red blob dart across the road. She increased the infrared level and was able to pick out several more blobs, of vaguely humanoid shape. They were all motioning to each other and moving quickly across the area at a low crouch. Clearly, they did not want to be seen.

“What do you think?” the sniper asked, rubbing his tired eyes. “Just an animal right?”

The man sounded nervous; Kalyn couldn’t blame him. Her own heart was pounding, and it was only partly from excitement that her hunt was almost over. As much as they may deny it, fear was an old friend of even the most veteran of bounty hunters.

She’d known for hours that Kassh wasn’t going to show his ugly face in broad daylight. He preferred attacking at night, and now it seemed that her theory had been correct. Here they were, right where she wanted them.

She turned to the trooper. “I don’t think it’s an animal, unless animals have learned advanced recon tactics. Send up the alarm.”

“What?”

“ _Send up the alarm_.”

The man blinked for a moment, then nodded and turned away, pressing a finger to the comlink in his ear. Kalyn activated her own comm and said, “Hey Rookie, it’s Farnmir here.”

“ _What_ _’s up_?” Jay replied, sounding bored. “ _Another duracrete leech trip the perimeter alarm?_ ”

“No. I’ve picked up movement along the west side of the warehouse. Advise you check it out, over.”

There was a pause, then the other woman replied, “ _Okay. I_ _’ll see what’s going on, then relay the info to Vhetin. If it is Kassh, do us all a favor and keep an eye out for his snipers will you?_ ”

“Copy that,” she replied, settling herself back behind her own rifle and moving the weapon over to the western side of the roof. She shifted for a moment, moving into a comfortable, stable shooting position before sighting in on the red blobs still scurrying through the shadows.

“What’s the deal, Rookie?” she asked after a few minutes of tense silence. “Friend or foe?”

“ _The guards say it isn_ _’t one of their patrols_ ,” Jay replied. “ _I don_ _’t know. Can you get a better view?_ ”

“No,” Kalyn replied blankly.

“ _Okay. Um... what do we do now?_ ”

“Besides wait for them to start shooting?”

“ _Yeah_ _…_ ”

“We can be proactive,“ Kalyn said, shifting her position and carefully placing her finger on the firing stud of her rifle, “and take ‘em out before they get organized.”

“ _Kalyn_ ,“ Jay said, “ _wait for a second. We don_ _’t know who we’re dealing with, and we don’t want to give away your position before we’re ready for-_ ”

Farnmir pulled the trigger and the echoing _crack_ of her rifle drowned out the Rookie’s voice.

~~~~~~~~

“Farnmir,“ Jay said, “wait for a second. We don’t know who we’re dealing with, and we don’t want to give away your position before we’re ready for-“

Jay instinctively ducked, her voice cut off as the loud _crack_ of a sniper rifle split the silence above her. She saw one of the distant shadowy figures crumple to the ground and she drew her pistol, muttering, “Damn it.”

“ _All units_ ,” Farnmir’s voice said over the open comm channel. Her voice was surprisingly calm, a matter-of-fact tone that spoke to her extensive experience in this kind of situation. “ _We have unidentified contacts approaching from the west. Regroup and engage. Repeat, regroup and engage._ ”

“Stay where you are!” Jay said to the guards closest to them. “Do not move until we know what the hell is going on!”

A projectile sniper bullet slashed by her face, close enough for her to feel the wind created by its passing. She staggered back, losing her balance and sprawling back on the duracrete. The bullet hit one of the human guards in the chest and he flew back with a scream.

She quickly rolled over to stare around at the darkness around them as the other patrol guards scrambled to cover. The warehouse was situated in a huge hundred-meter duracrete plaza, far removed from any buildings. But even as Jay watched, four yellow bolts sporadically flashed from a tall skyscraper across the plaza, screeching through the silence to pop and flash against the ground around them.

 _Four snipers, just like Tarron said_ , she thought. She tapped her ear-mounted comlink and snapped, “Farnmir, get off your ass and take those snipers out!”

“ _I_ _’m trying!_ ” the huntress snapped back. “ _They_ _’re wearing some kind of heat-hiding suits. It’s masking their thermal imprints, and making it a bugger to hit them_.”

She cursed again and switched comm channels. Around her, guards took cover behind large shipping crates or down behind walls built to stop speeders from parking too close to the warehouse. They occasionally jumped up, squeezing off shots at the advancing Midnight Ultraviolet mercenaries. As soon as the mercs were in range, they began firing back. The air was soon filled with multicolored blaster bolts and the acrid tinge of ion burn.

Within the span of a few seconds, the battle had officially begun.

“Vhetin,” she said into her comm, scrambling to her feet and firing at the approaching mercenaries, “we’ve got company up here. We’re holding out, but you might want to keep on your toes. If they get past us, your position is going to be flooded with hostiles.”

“ _All right_ ,” her partner replied. “ _Stay safe up there_.”

“Copy that.”

She ducked down next to Jao-Dun behind a large supply crate. Blaster bolts popped and zinged off the ground just behind her heels as she threw herself to safety, back pressed securely against the crate. The Zabrak grinned at her as she fired.

“Having fun yet?”

She glared at him. “This isn’t the time to be making jokes.”

“I’m not,” he said, popping his head and blaster around the crate and firing three shots from his short-stocked rifle. Two bodies fell to the ground a few meters away, twitched, a lay still. The Zabrak grinned his yellow-black grin again, moved back behind the crate, and grunted, “I live for this.”

“Then you’re crazier than I thought,” Jay muttered as she carefully sighted in on a lumpy mass that could only have been a Gammorean. She fired three times and the dark figure stumbled.

Two more sniper shots flashed over her head with loud _cracks_ , the projectile bolts invisible against the dark sky. Sparks lit up the darkness as bullets ricocheted off the duracrete at Jay’s feet, making her scramble back to safety.

“Damn it,” she breathed, letting her head hit back against the crate. Her heart was racing in her chest, her body flooded with icy currents of adrenaline. “Farnmir, how close are you to taking out those snipers?”

Three swift shots - a staccato _crack, crack, crack_ \- echoed almost directly over her head, and the other bounty huntress replied, “ _I_ _’m doing my best. I think I got one of them, but-_ ”

Her transmission was cut off as another sniper bullet ricocheted off the ground near Jay’s foot. She yanked her boot back as Jao-Dun laughed and fired out at their enemies again.

“Try harder!” she snapped.

As her Zabrak companion peeked out from his end of the crate, he reported, “The targets are approaching fast. Sniper team, focus your fire on them while the bounty hunter takes down the snipers. Get ready for a volley on my mark.”

“Be careful not to shoot any Twi’leks,” Jay added. “Kassh is to be taken alive. Repeat, we want him _alive_.”

The comm channels were filled with affirmations as Jao-Dun busied himself reloading his blaster. Jay hazarded a look around her end of the crate and saw that the mercenaries were close enough to be seen in the light of the mounted glowlamps set up a few meters from the warehouse. It was a motely assortment of humans, Nikto and Gammoreans. The usual fare, if Tatooine was any indication.

“On my mark...” Jao-Dun murmured. “In three... two... _fire_!”

Every sniper rifle fired, releasing a deafening _boom_ punctuated by the white-hot flashes at the end of the gun barrels on the roof above them. Those few mercenaries that were in view crumpled or were blasted bodily off their feet, dead before they could scream.

“Nice shot sniper team!” Jao-Dun cried, punching a gloved fist in the air. “Reload and prepare for another volley.”

Two more sniper shots erupted from the roof of the building, and Farnmir said, “ _I got two more of the snipers. Only one left... oh kriff!_ ”

Jay saw it too: the approaching silhouettes of five huge Darktrooper droids. They stomped forward, heedless of the Midnight Ultraviolet mercs they shoved or trampled underfoot aside as they went. As one, they raised their arms and unleashed a barrage of bolts from their arm blasters and their shoulder-mounted cannons.

Jay ducked back behind the supply crate as the blaster and cannon bolts exploded around her, sending guards flying and making chunks of duracrete erupt from the walls and ground in explosions of smoke, fire, and debris.

“Damn,” she muttered, reloading her pistol. “They’re here sooner than we thought!”

She glanced over at Jao-Dun. “Ready to spring the trap?”

The Zabrak grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

He pulled his comlink and shouted, “All guards in the vicinity of Sector G-Thirteen, fall back and reinforce rear positions! We’re about to unveil our welcoming present. You have ten seconds!”

There was a chorus of agreements and affirmations over the comm as Jay silently counted, _Ten... nine... eight... seven..._

The Darktroopers  trudged closer, their storm of blaster bolts gouging and denting the durasteel crate she and Jao-Dun were using for cover. She flinched as a bolt ricocheted off the metal near her shoulder. At Jao-Dun’s signal, she pulled a remote detonator from her belt and thumbed open the control hatch.

 _Three... two... one_!

She pushed the red button in the center of the detonator. The entire square bucked beneath her feet.

Past the guard barricade, all the supply crates detonated as one. The reactive coolant fluid they had hidden within them ignited violently in roaring flashes of pale blue fire. The explosion enveloped Darktroopers and MUV mercs alike and the firefight stopped for a few moments in a haze of flame and smoke. When the smog cleared and the roar of the explosion echoed away into the distance, the square beyond was littered with debris. Nothing moved and silence descended on the duracrete courtyard.

Jay let out a relieved sigh and tossed the spent detonator aside. “Well,” she panted, “that’s one problem taken care of.”

Their break wasn’t going to last long; already, mercenary reinforcements were approaching from the shadows at the end of the courtyard. But it was a relief just to be able catch her breath. At her side, Jao-Dun grinned like a child given a sweetcake, staring out at the explosion site.

“You just made my day, bounty hunter. Let’s hope your Kassh guy wasn’t in the middle of all that.”

“Let’s hope.”

“ _Nice work_ ,” Farnmir said over her comm. “ _I bet the Imperials saw that fireball from orbit. In fact... oh sh-_ ”

The rest of her transmission was cut off, and Jay sat up, instantly alert again. “Farnmir?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

Even as she asked, the bounty huntress came vaulting off the roof of the building, shouting, “Move! Move!”

Two more snipers followed her, landing hard on the duracrete and tucking their rifles tightly against their bodies to avoid damaging the fragile weapons. Another explosion ripped the night, accompanied by a blinding flash of orange-white flame from the roof of the building. The ground bucked beneath Jay’s feet again, this time sending her sprawling.

“What the hell was _that_?” Jao-Dun snapped as Farnmir took cover behind a nearby barrier. Jay scrambled back to her feet and behind cover, emptying her pistol’s magazine at the approaching mercenaries as they took advantage of her momentary loss of footing and opened fire at her.

Farnmir threw aside her sniper rifle when it clicked empty and drew her silver-plated pistol. “I picked up more troops approaching from the east. One of the buggers tossed a thermal det up right into the middle of us. We’re surrounded.”

Jay motioned for guards to fan out and protect their rear, then ducked as a bright red blaster bolt sizzled through the air and missed by only a few centimeters. She looked up and fired three times before being forced to move back to safety while she reloaded. As she did, she spotted another dark figure sprinting for the door of the warehouse.

At first she thought it was one of the guards, fleeing in cowardice for the safe halls of the base, but she noticed that there was a single flapping lekku protruding from the base of his skull. The other one was nothing but a stump against his head.

She cursed and activated her comm. “All guards form up and fall back inside the warehouse!” She yelled and fired at a lanky human hefting a deceptively large blaster rifle. “We’re surrounded, and there are mercenaries inside! Repeat, fall back into the warehouse!”

“Come on!” she shouted. She grabbed Jao-Dun’s wrist before the Zabrak could fire again, yanking him toward the warehouse doors as Farnmir rolled out from cover and released four hastily-aimed shots at the approaching enemy to cover their escape. Other guards joined them, shouting and firing and dying as blasterfire chewed the air all around them.

As the defense force retreated into the safety of the warehouse, one of the guards shouted over the building’s intercom system, “ _Kassh_ _’s troops have entered the base! Kassh’s troops have entered the-_ ”

The rest of the transmission was cut off by blaster fire.

“Form up!” Kalyn roared, motioning with her arm. She took cover behind a thick durecrete pillar and reloaded her pistol. “Those kriffers are right on top of us!”

Jay and Jao-Dun followed suit, as did the rest of the guards. Together, they dug in and waited for their enemy to show themselves. The Midnight Ultraviolet troops didn’t disappoint. Within moments they came crashing through the main doors with weapons blazing. The unluckiest among them were cut down by a rainbow cloud of blaster fire.

But there was one person suspiciously absent from the battle: Kassh had vanished into the depths of the warehouse, no doubt heading straight for the crime lords’ hidden vault.

Jay triggered her ear comm. “Vhetin, get ready. I think Kassh is headed right for you.”

~~~~~~~~

Vhetin waited, flexing his gloved grip around the contoured grip of his saber-staff in anticipation as he heard Jay’s voice shout, “ _All guards form up and fall back inside the warehouse!_ ”

 _Come on, Kassh_ , he thought with a scowl. _I_ _’m right here waiting for you._

Without warning, a howling Weequay came running down the stairs, brandishing his empty blaster rifle like a club. Vhetin ducked the first clumsy swing at his helmet and brought his saber-staff up at the alien’s chest. The _snap-hiss_ of the igniting blade drowned out the Weequay’s howling, followed by a sizzle as the glowing blue blade sank into the Weequay’s chest. The alien’s brown eyes stretched wide and he fell back without a sound.

Vhetin straightened, deactivating his weapon and returning to his previous stance to wait. It wasn’t long before more of Kassh’s troops made their way towards him. He quickly and efficiently dealt with them; they were simple hired guns, no fair match against a Mandalorian. Soon the passage around him was littered with bodies, the walls and floor scorched by blaster fire and lightsaber burns.

Vhetin didn’t move. There was only one way to get to the crime lords, and Kassh knew that as well as he did. He’d have to go through the black-armored warrior if he wanted to get to his prey.

Unfortunately, Kassh seemed to be throwing all of his forces in his direction before he moved in himself. As he waited, the loud _clomp clomp clomp_ of metallic boots sounded from the top of the stairs, and Vhetin’s HUD picked out the approaching form of a Mark-III Imperial Darktrooper.

He slumped in disappointment. He’d hoped that Jay and Farnmir had destroyed all five Darktroopers with their coolant fluid explosion earlier. It seemed that he wasn’t that lucky.

The mechanical trooper turned its red photoreceptors on him and raised its arm-mounted cannons, rumbling, “ _Step aside and place your weapons on the ground. Failure to comply will result in immediate termination_.”

Vhetin didn’t answer the droid; he just activated his saber-staff and darted forward, hoping to take it by surprise. No such luck; the Darktrooper seemed to anticipate the aggressive move and swung its massive arm. He moved to dodge, to pirouette and slash the arm away. But his armor slowed his defensive spin and the blow caught him in the chest, driving him into the duracrete wall hard enough to send web-like cracks up around him. His armor took most of the force out of the blow, but it was still enough to wind him for a moment. But only a moment.

He darted forward before the droid could recover and swung his staff down, severing the droid’s arm at the shoulder. If the trooper registered the damage, it didn’t show it. It instead swiveled its shoulder-mounted cannon to face him and fired.

Vhetin didn’t think, just ducked and somersaulted forward as instinct demanded. The rocket took another huge chunk out of the wall and red-hot chips of duracrete flashed by the huge droid’s faceplate as it approached. It made a fist with its remaining arm and a long vibroblade sprung from its arm, activating with a metallic buzz.

Vhetin got to his feet again, bringing his own weapon up in a defensive position as the Darktrooper approached.

As soon as it was in range, the Darktrooper swung the vibroblade at him, specifically aiming at the weak points in his armor: under the armpits, the ribs, and the neck. Vhetin avoided the first wave of attacks, though the vibroblade did scratch a long, thin stripe of paint off his _beskar_ _’gam_ ’s chest plate. The swipe left the droid off-balance and he brought his saber up and sliced up through the control panel on the Darktrooper’s chest. No effect. The war droid stomped forward and raised its weapon again. Vhetin ducked out of the way of the next slash and severed the trooper’s shoulder cannon with a quick slice.

The trooper spun with surprising speed and caught Vhetin in the chest with a powerful punch. The bounty hunter sprawled back on the floor, struggling to get to his feet. As the droid raised a foot, preparing to crush his chest in like the droid on Tatooine, Vhetin rolled out of the way and scrambled to his feet behind the Darktrooper. He sliced upward with his lit saber pike, spun, and stabbed the droid. This time, his blade sank right in the fuel intake port that supplied power to the rocket pack built into its back. The sparks that flew from his saber’s glowing blade ignited the fuel within and the trooper suddenly exploded into motion, propelled back down the hall by the force of the escaping flame. With an blast of light and shrapnel and a last metallic scream, the trooper smashed into a durasteel wall down the hall and vanished in a concussive blast and a cloud of flame.

Vhetin slumped to his knees, winded by the force of the droid’s attack. He took a few moments to catch his breath, then straightened again and deactivated his saber pike’s blade. He opened a comm channel to the other members of his team.

“How’re you doing Jay?”

There was a grunt from her end, followed by the high-pitched _snap_ of her blaster. “ _Tough going,_ ” she replied breathlessly. “ _The guards are holding their own at the second security checkpoint, but we won_ _’t be able to hold ‘em all back forever. Any sign of Kassh?_ ”

“Not yet,” Vhetin said, narrowing his eyes at the passage ahead, which was now littered by flaming puddles of fuel and smoldering bits of Darktrooper. “But he’ll make it past eventually. Do you think he’s actually here this time?”

“ _Oh yeah. I spotted him heading inside just a few minutes ago._ ”

He nodded, satisfied. “All right. You know the plan. When he-”

“ _Oh kriff!_ ” she suddenly said. “ _Damn it, there he is! All forces, do not kill the Twi_ _’lek! Repeat, do not-_ ”

The rest of the transmission washed out in static. Vhetin searched the other comm channels, but caught nothing.

 _Damn,_ he thought. _They must be jamming our communications._

He ignited his saber-staff once more and tensed, waiting. If the guards were holding their position at the second security checkpoint, that meant Kassh would be here in just a few minutes.

 _I_ _’m ready for you, Kassh,_ Vhetin thought grimly. _Come and get me._

_~~~~~~~~_

Kassh somersaulted behind cover, managing to take out two of the guards at the fourth security outpost as he did. After he’d sucked in a fresh breath to calm his aim, he pulled a thermal det from the clips on his chest and lobbed it towards them. With a resounding explosion and a wash of flame, the det completely demolished the barricades at the checkpoint. Well-placed shots from his rifle quickly dispatched the few guards that survived.

With his path clear, he set off towards the stairs that would lead him down to the crime lords’ meeting room. With any luck they were still barricaded in there, sucking their thumbs and hoping Cin Vhetin would be able to save them.

He knew Vhetin and his new partner were here. He’d spotted the girl only moments before, as he’d snuck inside the warehouse. And seeing as Vhetin was the most skilled bounty hunter present - save for maybe that damned Farnmir woman - he was most likely guarding the targets.

 _No matter,_ he thought, his hand almost unconsciously resting on the lightsaber hilt buckled at his hip. _I came prepared_.

He came across three more guards on the lower floor, each dug in place within a cavernous storage room. Luckily, many of the rooms were full of supply boxes similar to the ones he himself had stolen to get his hands on his new lightsaber. Cover was plentiful and he could move from stack to stack with ease. He made his way past the security checkpoints without too much trouble. It was slow going, his progress hampered by the tenacity of the defenders, but he was in no real rush. Xizor and his ilk had nowhere to run now. He had his quarry trapped, once and for all.

The final flight of stairs came into view at long last. He jogged forward, hopping down the steps two at a time in his haste to reach the bottom. And when he came to the lower hall, he found - surprise, surprise - none other than Cin Vhetin, standing in the center of a small battlefield crammed into the cramped hall. No less than twenty bodies lay sprawled on the floor, all of them showing signs of lightsaber burns, high-heat amputations, and other cauterized wounds.

The Mandalorian took three slow steps forward, blue saber-staff ignited in one hand.

“Put your weapons on the ground and your hands behind your head,” he said slowly, pointing the glowing blade at Kassh’s chest. His voice was low and full of suppressed fury.

Kassh grinned impudently and tossed his rifle aside, pulling his own lightsaber off his belt and activating the green blade with a familiar _snap-hiss_. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly, unholstering a pistol in his other hand. “I rather enjoy my freedom.”

“You don’t want to do this,” Vhetin said, his expression unreadable through his helmet’s T-visored gaze. “You’re worth more alive.”

“Then stand aside,” Kassh shot back, “and let me get on with my business.”

“No.”

The Twi’lek grinned again. “Then let’s play.”

The battle did not begin immediately. The two combatants kept themselves frozen, sizing up the other and waiting for the opponent to strike first. There would have been focused silence between them, but the clamor of battle surrounding them made true silence impossible.

Vhetin made the first move, vaulting up the stairs and stabbing forward with his pike. Kassh easily dodged the blow and batted the saber aside. The hunter used the counter to his advantage and spun in a full pirouette, coming at him from his other side. Kassh backpedaled and blocked the blows while firing with the pistol in his other hand.

Kassh had a definite advantage. With a saber in one hand and a blaster in the other, he could unleash a flurry of blows that even Vhetin wasn’t fast enough to counter. Even as he watched, three of his shots hit Vhetin in the chest and stomach plates, making him flinch away and granting Kassh an opening for more attacks.

But for all his ferocity, he had traded away his strength and speed. He was hard-pressed to keep up with Vhetin’s powerful pike attacks with a one-handed combat stance. He’d trained with melee weapons before, but didn’t have the degree of experience and the hefty weaponry the Mandalorian had at his disposal. He was holding his own, but just barely.

Their fight took them back up the stairs, sparks cascading around them as green and blue clashed and spun through the muggy air. Kassh bared his teeth in concentration as sweat beaded his brow, throwing all his speed and might into the duel. Vhetin’s faceplate was as expressionless as a corpse and he pushed forward with a ruthlessness of intent that Kassh would otherwise have found admirable. Every strike, every counterattack, was meant to disable and cripple, but not kill; Kassh knew he was worth more alive than dead. It was a battle fought with the skill and precision for which Mandalorians were so celebrated.

His distraction cost him. Vhetin landed a kick in the middle of Kassh’s face, his boot easily breaking the Twi’lek’s nose. Kassh barely felt the blow, his pain soothed by adrenaline, and he responded with one of his own; he pulled back his saber and fired his pistol three times at point-blank range into the cross-bar of Vhetin’s visor. Sparks flew as the rounds burst against the weaker transparisteel T-visor, cracking the metal into a thin radial spider web. Vhetin grunted in shock and surprise and staggered back, holding his helmet.

Kassh moved to press his advantage, raising the lightsaber over his head. But Vhetin wasn’t out of the fight yet. He whipped around and slammed the blunt end of his lit pike into his opponent’s solar plexus, winding him and forcing him to stumble away in dazed confusion. After a few pained and breathless moments during which they both regained their focus, their fight continued.

They fought their way back down the hall through which Kassh had fought only minutes before. A cadre of guards who had come to reinforce their fallen comrades seemed to debate whether to interfere, glancing down at their blasters with an air of futility. Witnessing the clash of lightsabers before them, they seemed to deem their intervention futile and rushed off to help their fellows in other parts of the warehouse.

It wasn’t long before Kassh was losing both strength and ground as Vhetin’s seemingly unending stream of brutal slashes and stabs wore at his stamina. The Mandalorian was good, there was no denying that. He possessed a strength and depth of training Kassh lacked. He was increasingly beginning to feel like an ewok battling a wookiee. To combat such a superior foe, he needed a different tactic.

So when their battle carried them to a side passage, he fired twice into Vhetin’s already-wounded shoulder and took off down the hall as fast as his legs could carry him. Vhetin shouted in pain and fell back, holding his smoking and bleeding arm.

Kassh grinned and took cover in the shelter of another nearby side passage, blocking the bounty hunter from view from around the corner. If he was lucky, he could double back past him and get to the crime lords before-

The butt of a blaster flashed into view and cracked hard against his forehead. He tripped, his momentum sending him sprawling unceremoniously across the floor. He blinked stars from his eyes and tried to rise, but a boot in his back pushed him back down.

“Hey there,” came the voice of Vhetin’s partner. The girl. Even now, she pressed her knee into his spine and the barrel of her weapon into his neck. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, you and me.”

“Do yourself a favor,” Kassh grunted, his face pressed against the cold duracrete floor. “Cuff me now before you get hurt.”

The woman snorted, her pistol still dug into the base of his neck. “I don’t think so. I’ve got you right were I-”

She was cut off when Kassh suddenly rolled over, activating his lightsaber and slashing it across her face. She started and jerked back, the humming blade missing her by mere centimeters. She stumbled back, startled off balance, and Kassh scrambled to his feet once more. He vaulted down the entire seven-stair flight to the floor below in a single bound, landing hard and continuing deeper into the warehouse without looking back.

That had been far too close, even for him. If he could fall back to a defensible location, to a place where he could lie in wait for his pursuers…

But as he turned another corner he saw the angular shadow of the Mandalorian approaching from the end of the passage. His lightsaber pike was lit in one hand and as he stepped closer, he growled, “You’ve brought me on quite the merry chase, _burcya_. But that chase is over. Put your weapons on the ground.”

Kassh turned, meaning to double back the way he’d come. But even as he spun around, the woman jumped down the last few stairs and approached from behind, pistol raised and aimed steadily at his chest.

“Hands in the air,” she said with a scowl. “Don’t make us drop you where you stand.”

Kassh scowled right back and raised his own pistol at her. He glanced over his shoulder, pointing the saber blade in Vhetin’s direction. “Back off. I’m not going to be brought in again by the likes of you scum.”

“Give it up, Kassh,” Vhetin said, dropping into a combat-ready stance. His saber droned on malevolently in his grasp. “The guards are mopping up your mercenaries as we speak. The crime lords are safe, and you’re cornered.”

“You’ve lost,” added the woman.

Kassh sneered at them both in turn, lip curling in fury and disgust with equal measure. “You may think you’ve won,” he panted. “But you’ve forgotten one thing: only one of you is wearing armor.”

He turned his gaze to the woman and fired three times.

She screamed as the scarlet bolts tore through her thin jacket like a knife through flimsi. She dropped her gun with a clatter and sprawled to the floor, arms and legs flailing. Kassh grinned and shot her twice more to ensure the job was finished. She took one last gasp and fell still.

“ _Jay_!” The Mandalorian’s voice was shot through with dismay and he took a single step forward. Kassh brandished his saber in his direction and Vhetin’s gaze snapped to him. That expressionless T-visor was made all the more threatening by the transparisteel that had been cracked by Kassh’s blaster shots. It refracted the light, painting it in a multitude of colors that flashed dangerously in the illumination.

“Back up,” Kassh threatened. “Now.”

Vhetin didn’t listen. With a shout of fury he threw himself forward, whirling his pike in a dazzling arc in front of him. There was no restraint now; the bounty hunter was working to kill. The change was both dramatic and dangerous.

Kassh scowled in concentration as their duel began again, and with renewed ferocity.Now he knew there was no going back. He had some skill with a blade, but he was no match for an enraged Mandalorian like Vhetin. His defense had barely held before. Now it all but crumbled.

Sparks lit the dark hallway and threw menacing shadows up on the dirty walls. Vhetin drove Kassh back down the hall, spinning and slashing with all his strength. Kassh did his best to transfer to the offensive with detrimental results. With his guard already faltering, shifting attention only made him all the more vulnerable. First he took a slice to the shoulder, then a light blow to the left leg. As Vhetin pressed his attack, his lightsaber casing blue arcs around his black-armored body, Kassh began to actually worry for the first time in many years.

He raised his pistol but the glowing lightsaber carved it in half, taking the better part of his left hand with it. The wound smoked and smoldered and his scream echoed through the hall, but his concentration on the task at hand didn’t allow him pause to dwell on his wounds. He was now acting purely on instinct, doing his best to block Vhetin’s attacks.

He quickly realized, however, that the seemingly infallible bounty hunter was tiring; he could hear the man panting, his breath coming in gravelly gasps over his helmet’s vocoder. His wounded arm was doing little more than hanging at his side, blood leaking down from the wound Kassh had delivered earlier. The strength in Vhetin’s attacks was fading, and his defense with it.

A cut, a kick, and a swift uppercut; Kassh managed to slam the hilt of his saber across Vhetin’s helmet as the bounty hunter pulled back for another stab at his chest. The hunter faltered, taking two steps back and shaking his dazed head, and Kassh moved forward for a killing blow. He raised his lightsaber, cradling his wounded hand to his chest, and stabbed forward.

~~~~~~~~

_“Hurts, doesn’t it?”_

A voice, speaking as if from the distance of many years and many more miles. Yet it had only been less than a month since then; curious. A face faded into view, wavering through watery vision. As it slowly resolved and clarified, it revealed itself to be the face of a clone.

_Tammer!_

But no, it wasn’t her old friend, the prison guard. This clone had only stubble for hair and was wearing a sympathetic expression, touched by an ever-present smirk. Jaing. Jaing Skirata.

“ _Wait till you feel the real thing_ ,” he said, his voice echoing as if from down a long tunnel.

The image stuttered like a hologram, then shattered like glass with a painful explosion of noise and feeling. Jay gasped, her eyes flying open as she clutched at her stomach and chest.

“ _Cheating is fine_ ,” came Vhetin’s voice, echoing like Jaing‘s. “ _But it_ _’s more than what's fair and what's not. You have to do whatever it takes to win. You need to be able to kick, bite, pull hair-_ ”

 _Get shot_ , she thought with another gasp. She rolled over onto her back, seeing sparks fly through her hazy vision. Beyond her wavering world, she could see Vhetin was engaged in another duel with Kassh. Her partner was holding his own despite an arm soaked in blood. But she could tell even in her state that his shoulder was slowing him down. He was favoring his other arm, using his wounded limb as little as possible. It was a clear weakness.

Even as she watched, Kassh raised his pistol and aimed clearly for the wounded arm. Vhetin planted a foot forward before the shot could fire off, hooked his pike around, and sliced the blaster in half. The blade also cut through most of Kassh’s hand, leaving behind little more than a cauterized stump.

Kassh’s scream of pain and anger seemed to snap some sense back into her, and she shook her head to clear it.

 _Get up_ , she thought to herself. _Get up. You_ _’ve still got a job to do._

Slowly and with a groan of effort, she pushed herself to her feet and limped toward the duel. Every muscle screamed in protest, but she gritted her teeth and moved forward. As Vhetin pulled back for a stab, Kassh caught him across the helmet with the hilt of his lightsaber. Her partner stumbled back beneath the force of the blow.

Now was the only moment she would get. As Kassh stepped forward and drew back for a killing stroke, Jay raised her pistol and shot him in the back of the head.

A blue-white ring of energy spouted from the end of her pistol barrel. It enveloped Kassh with a hiss and pop and the Twi’lek suddenly convulsed. The lightsaber slipped from his grasp, bounced once, and deactivated with a hiss. Kassh fell to the ground as well, quivering and letting out little grunts with each spasm as the stun bolt got to work on his nervous system.

Within moments, he was unconscious.

Vhetin jumped into action; dropping his own weapon and whipping a pair of stun cuffs from a pouch on his belt. With a single motion he pulled Kassh’s twitching hands behind his back and snapped the shackles around his wrists. Once done, he slumped and let out a long breath.

“Got the sonofabitch…”

He glanced up at Jay, panting hard. His T-visor was cracked and splintered in three different places, his armor was marked with blaster burns, and the sleeve of his wounded arm was stained red to the elbow. He looked like he’d just fought through hell and back, and she was sure she looked the same.

“Are you all right?” he asked, cradling his wounded arm against his chest. “How did the armor hold up?

Jay grinned and lifted the hem of her shirt, revealing the armor-plated sparring vest worn beneath. The blaster bolts from Kassh’s pistol had hit her in the stomach and chest, leaving the light-grade _beskar_ plates burned and twisted, but intact.

“I’m fine,” she panted, running a hand over the warped metal. “Sore as shit, but still alive.

“But,” she said, lowering her shirt with a weary sigh, “next time _you_ can play dead while _I_ distract the bounty. ‘Kay?”

He nodded with an exhausted chuckle and pulled a comlink from his belt. “Farnmir,” he breathed, “is the warehouse secure?”

“ _Affirmative_ ,” came the reply. “ _The last of Kassh_ _’s thugs are cornered in the southeastern supply room. There’s only one way in and out, and the room has no clear cover. We’ve got ‘em._ ”

He nodded, visibly going limp in relief. Jay joined him in his relief; they’d captured their bounty, their employers were safe, and none of their team was dead. That was a _mission accomplished_ in anyone’s book.

Jay pulled her own comlink and dialed in a code. “Jao-Dun,” she said, “we need a med team down in hallway C-Eight-Three right away. We’ve got a stunned Twi’lek and a wounded Mandalorian down here.”

“ _Sure thing_ ,” the Zabrak guard replied.

Vhetin glanced up at her, tipping his head to the side in obvious defiance, but seemed too tired to argue with her. He let his back slap against the wall behind him and slowly slid down into a sitting position.

“And,” Jay added with a triumphant grin, “inform Prince Xizor that he owes us a hundred thousand credits.”


	10. Bounty Hunted

After Kassh had been secured in a hastily made a cell guarded by Guri, the Prince’s lethal bodyguard, and after Vhetin had grudgingly accepted to have his arm examined, he, Jay, and Farnmir were standing in the presence of the assembled crime lords once more.

“We are all in your debt,” one of the Twi’lek gangsters was saying, nodding to himself. “As… distasteful as it may be to say, we would all be dead if not for your courage and determination.”

Farnmir sighed, folding her arms across her chest and tapping her foot impatiently. Vhetin shot a glance in her direction, but said nothing. Sekha nodded to herself at her fellow Twi’lek’s words, a playful grin crossing her features.

“Indeed,” she said. “It seems we all owe you, bounty hunters. I’m sure without your presence, we all would have perished.”

The next to speak was Jabba the Hutt. He shifted his slimy bulk on his repulsor sled and rumbled in Huttese, “ _Hmm... your work was adequate. Not deserving of full compensation, but_ _…_ ”

“What?” Kalyn narrowed her eyes. “We just saved your fat bulk from-”

“ _That he was able to attack our meeting place is proof enough of your incompetence,_ ” the fat slug replied with a self-satisfied belch. “ _Fett would never have allowed his target such success._ ”

“ _Fett_ wouldn’t have organized the entire guard into a fighting force, or single-handedly tackled a psychopathic Gen’dai enforcer, or-”

Prince Xizor raised a thin-fingered hand and said, “That is enough. The hunters’ performance was more than adequate. That said, it is his Illustriousness Jabba who is so graciously providing the credits for this bounty. Therefore the ultimate terms of the payment are up to him.”

He fixed the Hutt with a narrow-eyed stare. “I would _suggest_ he choose his next course wisely,” he said slowly. “Employees are a great asset so long as they are _satisfied_ with the _proceeds_ of their work.”

Jabba rumbled in irritation, licked his phlegmy lips, and rumbled, “ _Sixty thousand. No more._ ”

Kalyn looked furious enough to kill. Vhetin quickly interceded.

“Seventy,” he countered.

“ _Sixty-five._ ”

“ _Seventy_ ,” he pressed.

Jabba narrowed his reptilian eyes for a too-long moment, then grudgingly nodded. “ _Very well. Seventy thousand credits._ ”

“Each,” Farnmir suggested.

“ _Don_ _’t be ridiculous_ ,” Jabba boomed indignantly. He belched and settled his grubby hands over the swell of his belly. “ _Even Fett wouldn_ _’t charge that much. At least not for a single target._ ”

Jay shrugged ruefully, casting Farnmir a sympathetic glance. “It was worth a shot.”

Xizor nodded to himself, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his purple-black robe. “Then the matter is settled. The credits will be transferred to your public accounts in the usual untraceable deposits.”

“Thank you, Prince.” Vhetin bowed his head. “Just make sure Kassh doesn’t escape again.”

Xizor narrowed his eyes, a malicious grin stretching across his leathery face to reveal sharp and yellowed teeth.

“Such matters are not your concern,” he said. “Rest assured, he shall be… taken care of.”

“Then our business is done,” Farnmir said, surprising Vhetin by nodding with a surprising level of decorum. After a moment, Vhetin and Jay did as well. Xizor dismissed them with a wave of a taloned hand. His right hand, Guri, candidly placed herself between the Falleen and the hunters.

Their audience clearly over, the three left the room. The door slammed shut behind them with resounding finality. The trio of mercenaries walked in silence for a time until the front doors of the warehouse came into view. With the exit in sight, Kalyn turned to them folded her arms across her chest.

“Well... I guess this is it.”

Vhetin nodded silently, following her example and crossing his arms. Jay merely smiled and nodded.

“It’s been…” Kalyn paused, searching for the correct words. “… interesting.”

The old huntress hesitated, then held out her hand. “Much as I may hate to say it, you’re good; better than any hunters I’ve seen in a long time.”

“High praise, coming from you,” Vhetin said, shaking the offered hand.

“Don’t hold out hope for higher,” she said with a small smirk. She shook the hand, a terse up-and-down, then turned to Jay.

“Rookie.” She hooked her thumbs into her belt. You keep out of trouble.”

Jay laughed, shaking her hand. “When Mustafar freezes over.”

With a last good-bye, Farnmir turned and headed out the doors to her ship waiting outside. After a few moments and a blast of downdraft from her engines, the _Tough Luck_ lifted off into the air. With a rumble of charging ion drives the ship blasted away into the crowded skylanes.

Vhetin and Jay followed onto the landing pad outside. The guards were cleaning up after the battle, dragging away bodies and tending to the wounded. Jao-Dun was conversing with a nearby patrol, no doubt setting up a new perimeter lest bandits take advantage of the confusion. The sun was just rising across the cityscape, painting the sky a pale purple-blue dotted with millions of tiny speeders — the ever-present traffic flow locals called _The River that Never Sleeps_.

Jay smiled as they emerged into the morning. “And to think the only reason we met her was because she was originally trying to kill us. Weird galaxy, huh?”

“Not as weird as you might think. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“We part on good terms now,” he said. “But we may need to remind her in the future that we’re allies, not enemies.”

“Cheer up, big guy.” She nudged him in the ribs and he flinched away with a good-natured chuckle. “You just got a third cut of a hundred k. I, for one, won’t let you rain on that particular parade”

“Fair enough,” he said, a smile on his voice. “The brooding can wait.”

“So what now?” she asked him. “We just go home?”

He nodded. “To warm food, hot showers, and a city full of people who couldn’t give a _shab_ who you are.”

“And who _definitely_ don’t try to kill you while you’re walking down the street,” she laughed. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

They returned to the shelter of _Void_ , which Vhetin had called in before their audience with their employers — _former employers now_ , she reminded herself. Jay headed straight for her temporary quarters, with the intention of catching up on some well-deserved sleep during the trip back to Mandalore. Vhetin parted with her there and headed for the cockpit, to check up on his credit accounts and ensure Jabba had come through on his payments. One couldn’t trust the hefty Hutt as far as he could be thrown. As he slid into the comfortable pilot’s seat, he let out a sigh and pulled off his helmet.

He turned the bucket over in his hands as he ran the ship computer through the usual pre-flight systems check. Kassh’s blaster bolts had cracked the transparisteel T-visor beyond simple repair and his HUD systems were completely fried. He’d need to stop by MandalMotors once home to see if Ume’o could get him a replacement.

He set the helmet aside and instead pulled up his credit account summary. Jabba had indeed come through on his payments; small amounts of credits had been paid to all his many public accounts before being funneled into his hidden stash in neat, untraceable digitized credits.

He let out a content sigh and put his hands behind his head, leaning back in his seat.

After a few moments of silence, the systems check chirped and signaled that something was out of place. His eyes instantly snapped open and he sat up in his chair.

The diagnostic informed him there was something wrong with his ship’s bounty database — the ever-changing database where he kept records of all the potential bounties presented to him recently. Usually, there were too many to sift through at once, so he simply filed them away for perusal at his leisure.

But the system diagnostic stated that there were no files in that folder. None. There was no evidence of battle damage or corruption. That meant they’d either been erased or-

 _Or downloaded_. _Stolen._

His mind suddenly flashed back to their hasty attack planning on Tatooine, when they’d thought Kassh was hiding in his Midnight Ultraviolet base outside Anchorhead.

“ _We_ _’ll need an eye in the sky_ ,” Jay had said. “ _Someone who can provide air support and watch for Kassh at the same time._ ”

 _Void_ had been the only ship with the stealth capabilities needed to sneak past the perimeter defenses. And since Vhetin had volunteered for the advance prepwork, softening up the enemy forces in the area, he couldn’t pilot his own ship.

“ _I_ _’ll take that job_ ,” Farnmir had unexpectedly volunteered, carefully avoiding Vhetin’s gaze and pretending to study the hologram schematics of the base. “ _I can also fly Vhetin_ _’s ship in and drop him off._ ”

 _Now_ he knew exactly what she’d been doing in his ship while flying him into combat. She’d been downloading his entire bounty database, stealing the leads she didn’t have the contacts to possess herself.

He sat back again as he warmed the engines, shaking his head as a disbelieved smile stretched across his face. He chuckled as he grasped the control yoke and lifted his ship from the duracrete landing pad.

 _Well played, Farnmir,_ he thought. _Well played. You_ _’re smarter than I thought._

_We_ _’ll definitely see you again. I’ll make sure of that._

Then he made for open sky, heading for orbit and from there, home.

~~~~~~~~

**Two days later**

Jay made her way toward the small square in front of the _Oyu_ _’baat_ , the formal gathering for the weekend Keldabe Market Day. She was on her own in the city for one of the first times since arriving on Mandalore, and she now had a rather hefty amount of credits to start her life over again. The air swam with the smell of fresh prospects, of a fresh start.

All across the _Oyu_ _’baat_ square, tents and stalls had been erected selling food, trinkets, jewelry, equipment, and weapons. Merchants called out advertisements for their wares, customers scurried back and forth, and yellow-armored Mandalorian Guard stood watch and kept the peace. Jay stopped near a black show tent where a bulky Mandalorian with tattoos on his bald head was selling variations of a lethal-looking Mandalorian sword called a _beskad._ Interesting, but not exactly her combat specialty. She looked around for a bit, then nodded respectfully to the Mando and continued on her way.

The sun beamed down overhead, warming her skin and soothing away the ache of previous days’ exertions. She was still recovering from the bumps and bruises of the hunt, but days of rest (and more than a few warm baths) had done wonders to her recovery. Now she was caught up in wanderlust, eager to see more of the city that, for the time being, was her home.

She finally stopped by a hastily erected gray stall selling equipment and accessories for bounty hunters and mercenaries of all sorts. There was rappelling wire, rocket darts, rolls of whipcord, different forms of clothing and armor, and long-lasting armor paints. It was run by a gaunt-faced woman with gray hair and dark eyes. Jay nodded to a jacket hanging behind the shopkeep’s head.

“Can I see that?”

The woman nodded silently and passed her the jacket. It was a fairly heavy piece of clothing, made from some durable black leather. It was complimented by armored shoulder pads of thicker leather, and lots of pockets for storing all manner of hunting gear. There were even slots inside the hem for slipping in armor plating.

She tried it on and found that it not only fit, but that she didn’t look too bad in it either. It was lighter than it looked, weighing only a little more than her old uniform jacket. It was comfortable, too, and would offer moderate protection against the elements — more, at least, than her current rag-tag gear would allow.

“What material is this?” she asked, stretching out the sleeves as she extended her arms.

“Triple-weave ironleather,” the woman replied in a gruff voice. She tapped the jacket’s surface with two fingers. “A new _Mando_ material designed specifically for mercs and _beroyas_. That _osik_ is tough enough to stop a knife.”

Jay nodded, impressed. It wouldn’t be a bad investment; her only set of clothing was the remnants of her old Navy uniform, and she felt pretty silly walking around in a wrinkled, stained, blaster-scarred flight suit in a city full of people fed up with Imperial supervision. And besides, she’d been shot twice during her last mission; a little extra protection would go a long way.

She glanced up at the woman and asked, “How much do you want for it?”

“Five hundred creds should do it,” the woman replied, holding out a hand for the money.

Jay fished in her pocket, realizing that the price would be outrageous anywhere else, but it barely put a dent in her current credit pool. She handed over the credits, thanked the woman, and continued on her way with the coat slung over one shoulder.

She shopped absently for a while longer, picking up a bottle of _tihaar_ here, a bag of sweetbread rolls there, all the while thinking about the sudden influx of credits to her hidden account. Though it was nice not to live off Rame and Mia Omotao’s kindness and credits, she just didn’t know what to _do_ with her cut of Kassh’s bounty.

It was more money than she’d had in her entire life, and she didn’t think it right to just sit on it for Force-knew how long. Vhetin had told her very few bounties were so rewarding (unless you were a hunter of Boba Fett’s considerable quality), but the number of digits in her credit account still surprised her.

Her first thought was to send the excess back to her family on Corellia. It was a tempting thought, but apart from occasionally missing her younger sister, she didn’t really miss her home. Her childhood had always been a crowded and tense one. She loved her family simply from a place of familiarity, but she didn’t think they needed her help. In fact she had never thought so.

Besides, a sudden package of thirty-five thousand credits would look pretty suspicious landing in the lap of an accused traitor and sellout. And it might leave a trail the Empire could follow back to Mandalore, compromising her safety and the safety of all her new friends.

She frowned and changed her line of thought. What to do? Donate it to some charity? The idea sounded rather tempting, but where would she send it? Many Mandalorians worldwide were in dire need of such help, but it was hardly like their people were known for their bleeding hearts and philanthropic endeavors.

Her gaze fell on the scruffy _Oyu_ _’baat_ tapcaf as she approached the front doors. Would Aramis accept the credits? Probably not; he was proud of the work he’d done since taking over management of the cantina and was unlikely to accept charity from anyone never mind an _aruetii_. Her gaze continued to travel around the run-down, poverty-stricken city, lingering in particular on a squad of shiny white-armored stormtroopers who were standing guard over the Market Day proceedings.

 A thought came to her at the sight.

If she followed through on this sudden idea, her actions would probably go largely unnoticed. Those who were affected wouldn’t know it was her hand at work, and those who knew wouldn’t thank her for it. But that wasn’t the point, was it? It was clear she wanted to use this overabundance of credits to help the people who had helped her. Who cared if they still considered her an _aruetii_ outsider afterward?

When Aramis, the _Oyu_ _’baat’s_ bartender, saw her enter with the coat still slung over her shoulder, he nodded in greeting with a somber frown.

“Getcha somethin’ _aruetii_?” he said. Over the months of her staying at the tapcaf, the word had grown to sound less like an insult and more like a name. It wasn’t meant to insult her, she knew, but it was what Mandalorians thought when they saw her all the same.

She slid into a seat at the bar and nodded. “Yeah. I want to get a meeting with whoever’s in charge of Mandalore.”

“You mean the Imperial Governor?”

“You know what I mean,” she replied.

Aramis grunted. “Then you’ll want to talk to Fenn Shysa. _Mand_ _’alor_ Fenn Shysa, though you probably won’t get on his good side using his formal title. Never did have the ass for a throne, that one.”

“Fenn Shysa,” Jay echoed. “And where would I find him?”

She expected him to give her directions to some stronghold or governmental building in the city. Hell, maybe even MandalMotors, since the tower was quite literally the beating heart of all Keldabe. But to her surprise, Aramis nodded to the booths along the eastern side of the cantina.

“He’s sittin’ right over there.” The bartender sniffed nonchalantly. “Second booth down, green-red armor. Can’t miss the towheaded fool.”

“H-he’s here?” For a moment, she didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected to get so far so easily.

“It’s lunchtime,” Aramis said, as if that explained everything.

In a way, it almost did. So Jay thanked him and tossed a credit chit onto the bar in thanks for his information. With newfound purpose, she turned and headed in the direction she’d been given. Sure enough, sitting in the second booth down the aisle was a man in green-red battle armor, pocked and scarred by many battles. His helmet was sitting on the table next to his plate, revealing a handsome face, long blonde hair and a short beard to the open air. The helmet itself was as dinged and battle-scarred as the rest of his armor, painted a distinctive green-red-white combination. There was a symbol painted in white across the forehead of his helmet, two dagger-like swoops of surprisingly elegant design.

She knew what those swoops were meant to signify. The symbols were known as _jaig eyes_ , and were considered an extraordinary honor; kind of like a Mandalorian version of the Corellian Bloodstripe award for outstanding bravery. In a culture that placed no stock in heroes or heroic deeds, the _jaig_ eyes were awarded to distinguish Mandos of particular bravery, devotion, or skill.

What manner of deed could warrant such an honor was beyond Jay. _Mandos_ were very flexible about what was expected of their comrades and not many acts of courage were rewarded with accolades, praise, or even simple recognition. Rame (who sported the jaig eyes on his own helmet) had told her once that in Mandalorian culture, acts of bravery or valor were simply part of being Mandalorian; they were expected to be the best fighters in all the galaxy, so going above and beyond the call of duty was simply nothing special. They didn’t even have a word in their language for _hero_.

If Fenn Shysa had done something to prove worthy of admiration even in the face of such high standards, she knew immediately that this was a man she could trust completely.

She stopped near his booth and cleared her throat. When the sound was lost amid the bustle of the lunchtime tapcaf, she raised her voice and said, “Excuse me.”

He glanced up at her, taking her in with a quick rake of his sea-blue eyes. Once he’d sized her up as no immediate threat, he raised an eyebrow in curiosity. He set aside his knife and fork and asked, “Can I help you?” He had a strong accent, and the words came out, _Cannae help ye?_

She gestured to the booth on the other side of the table. “Can I sit for a minute?”

He nodded. “Sure thing.”

She slid into the booth with a smile of gratitude, unsure where to begin. Shysa was still staring at her, as if still suspicious she was going to leap across the table and attack him. His hands were splayed casually over the tabletop, but she couldn’t help but notice how close his hand was to the pistol lying next to his discarded helmet.

“Um...” she frowned, gathering her thoughts. “Hi. You don’t know me. But I think I have something to give you.”

He narrowed his eyes with a wry, cautious smile. “It wouldn’t be wee and round and made o’ high-heat baradium, would it? ‘Coz I’ve had enough _aruetiise_ lobbin’ grenades my way tae last a lifetime.”

She quickly shook her head, blushing at the gentle accusation. “No! No. But I’ve just… I’ve come across a fairly large amount of money. I was wondering if you could help me find a use for it.”

“Want my advice?” he said with a grin. “Buy yerself a MerrSon rotary blaster cannon. I’ve always wanted one o’ those.”

She shook her head. “You misunderstand. I want to give this money to you. To help the Mandalorians.”

His other eyebrow rose to join the first.

She gestured out the window, to the urban decay that gripped the city. “I know you Mandos don’t care much for outward appearance, but I want to help out any way I can. I can see how much your people are suffering from poverty and starvation and unemployment.”

“Times are tough, aye,” Shysa agreed, sizing her up with newfound interest. “But we Mandos’re tough. We’ll weather the storm. Always have, always will.”

“I have thirty-five thousand credits on offer,” she said. “For you to use as you see fit. Urban development, police reform, commercial stimulation, whatever you want. And if I ever get my hands on this much cash in a lump sum again, I’ll give that to you as well.”

“Why?” he asked. “Why would an _aruetii_ want tae help us simple mercs out?”

“Because I’m like you. A _simple merc_ who wants to contribute. To building a better home here, for me and everyone around me.”

“How?”

“Just imagine how much help thirty-five thousand credits would be in keeping the Empire at bay,” Jay said quietly. “At giving you Mandos a leg-up and keeping the Imps out of all of our businesses. You know more people around here than I do; can you get this money to someone who’ll use it wisely?”

He stared at her for a long time, as if testing her for any signs of dishonesty. After a time he nodded slowly, almost to himself.

“All right, _aruetii_ ,” he said, his voice almost as quiet as hers. “You‘ve got yerself a deal.”

He reached across the table with an open hand. She hesitated, then shook it.

“Who are you, lass?”

“Jay,” she said. “Jay Moqena.”

“Well then, Jay Moqena,” he sighed, settling back in his seat, “after an offer like that, the least I can do is buy you lunch. Aramis’ midday stew may taste like shit, but it’ll stick tae yer ribs like nothin’ else.”

He fixed her with another wry smile, but she saw the first true twinkle of good humor in his eye. “An’ while we’re waitin’ you can tell me why a foreigner is so concerned about the well-being of Mandalorians. I like to know who I’m dealin’ with.”

She smiled at him and settled more comfortably into her own seat. “That sounds great.”

~~~~~~~~

**MandalMotors Tower**

Vhetin moved with purpose through the front lobby doors of MandalMotors, tucking his damaged helmet under his arm as he walked. He was currently wearing one of his backups, with the lower-grade HUD systems and thinner _beskar_ core in the plating. The lighter build threw off his usual balance and made it feel like his whole head was floating away at times. It was a definite annoyance, but Ume’o and his engineers would be able to fix his damaged kit within a few days.

He stepped through the lobby, past exhibits displaying the pride of Mandalorian craftsmanship through the centuries, and paused to wait by the dominating expo of the sleek new X-22 Skyraptor Interceptors the company had unveiled a few months before.

He examined the ship while he waited, impressed by what he saw: sleek, smooth, and daubed in reflective silver-black paints, the ship boasted a trio of high-power blaster cannons, a retractable ion cannon mounted to the bottom hull, and a spring-out rack of proton tracking torpedoes. It also was outfitted with four ion engine drives supported by a powerful hyperdrive system, making it one of the few hyperspace-capable starfighter models in the galaxy. And just to sweeten the deal, there was plenty of room for pilots to make their own adjustments and additions according to their particular tastes.

In all, Vhetin agreed with local ship dealers in the claim that it was one of MandalMotors’ most impressive models to date. He knew the entire engineer team was extremely proud of their work, and some of them even referred to the ship as their _cyar_ _’ika,_ their darling. They were right to be pleased with the outcome of their work; any bounty hunter would be lucky to call such a ship their own.

He frowned thoughtfully and turned his thoughts to the aftermath of the Kassh contract. An idea was slowly coming to mind, lurking below the surface like a predatory razorfin shark stalking its prey.

Tarron had greeted them with a weary but very pleased grin when they’d returned home. He’d informed them that Kassh was currently incarcerated in a super-max Black Sun-controlled prison in an undisclosed location, somewhere on the Outer Rim. There was no way the Twi’lek gangster would escape again, even with all his many contacts.

Back on Coruscant, the crime lords had successfully concluded their negotiations and decided that - for the moment - it was best _not_ to join forces with the Empire after all. The debate would continue in the months and years to come, but it was now none of Vhetin’s business what they decided. Still, he found it rather ironic that after all Kassh had done to make them pay for opposing him, they had actually agreed with his argument in the end. He was sure Kassh did not find it so humorous.

Kalyn Farnmir had disappeared almost as soon as she entered the congested skylanes of Coruscant, and even Vhetin’s many well-placed contacts had no clue as to her current whereabouts. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling he’d run across her again. And he knew that he would have to take extra precautions with the system firewalls for his ship’s computers. He didn’t hold Farnmir’s actions against her; it had been a smart move, downloading his bounty database while he wasn’t looking. But it would be a cold day in hell before he’d let someone steal from him without consequences or appropriate countermeasures the second time around.

As far as his partner was concerned, Jay was recovering nicely from her first contract. She’d been quiet and withdrawn the first few days back, seemingly more exhausted than anything else. But now that they’d both caught up on some rest, she seemed to be back to her old self, as cheerful and sarcastic as ever. Vhetin was glad she was bouncing back so quickly, seeing as she’d endured much more than the usual hunter would have to put up with on their first outing.

Part of him felt bad for dragging her into such a dangerous contract. Part of him believed he should have started her on something small — a Class One or Two bounty to start. But she’d earned her first battle scars, even if bacta treatment had left them both with little more than a few bruises, and she claimed she was now ready for anything the profession could throw at her.

Vhetin believed her, and reminded himself once again to thank her the next time they spoke. She had saved his life more than once over the course of the contract, from freezing to death on Rhen Var to almost being impaled by Kassh’s lightsaber. That wasn’t just a testament to her abilities; he _owed_ her.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned.

“So,” Ume’o said without a greeting. He was already staring at the helmet under Vhetin’s arm, a single skeptical eyebrow raised. “The _vode_ tell me you were shot in the face.”

“Face _plate_ ,” Vhetin corrected, offering his damaged helmet to the engineer. Ume’o took it, scratching his bald head and frowning. He turned the helmet over in his hands, examining the cracked T-visor and the warped HUD projectors mounted inside. He felt along the inside with his fingertips, then cursed and drew back as he cut himself on the fractured transparisteel.

“Think you can fix it?”

The tech shrugged. “You’ve outfitted your _buy_ _’ce_ a little past what we’re familiar with, but we’ll certainly give it a try. What kind of HUD system upgrade are you working with?”

“T-21 Gamma Version. The TacHUD edition.”

“Our guys are familiar with it. I think we can do business.”

Vhetin nodded absently, his gaze suddenly drawn back to the Skyraptor fighter. The idea that had been lurking in his mind was surfacing now, fleshing itself into a full plan. A plan to reward his partner for such an impressive outing as a fledgling huntress. A way to show his appreciation beyond a simple _thank you_. She deserved more than that.

He nodded toward the Skyraptor with a grunt to get his companion’s attention.

“Hey Ume’o. What’s the going price for an X-22 on the market?”

Ume’o glanced up at him for a moment with a confused scowl, then turned his scrutiny back to the helmet in his hands. “Uh... around two hundred thousand. That’s without the special weapons upgrades and _beskar_ plating. All that’s extra.”

“And with the discount for _Mando_ _’ad_ customers?”

Ume’o looked up again, staring at him with interest. “Why?” he asked. “You looking to buy?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

Vhetin turned back to the engineer and grinned beneath his helmet. “On whether you deliver them gift-wrapped.”

~~~~~~~~

_To be continued in Star Wars: White Snow: Justice..._


	11. Next Time...

_Next Time_ _…_

The Imperial forces of Mon Calamari are on the verge of total collapse. For months, the ruthless terrorist Jolee Uruc has been brutally ravaging the planetside military forces, attacking with lethal precision and leaving no survivors.

In an act of desperation, the aging governor of Mon Calamari has placed a bounty on her head, hoping that the galaxy's deadliest mercenaries will be enough to bring the terrorist leader down.

And who better to answer the call than a Mandalorian?


End file.
